Leaky roofs, broken-down boilers and closed-down toilets at a Northern Ireland secondary school have been exposed in a recent inspection.
A number of health and safety concerns were raised following a winter-time inspection of Dundonald High School, including roofs leaking into classrooms and a lack of heat in some areas of the school.
The inspection, carried out in December, was a follow-up on a previous inspection of the school in May 2022.
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While the Education and Training Inspectorate report, published this month, found the school is "living out its vision of being a caring school at the heart of the community" a series of health and safety hazards were identified.
"There is only one functioning boiler out of five and in some parts of the school there is no heat," the inspection report noted.
"The single-glazed windows in some classrooms are not fit for purpose; there are ongoing issues with roofs leaking into classrooms; there are a number of toilet blocks closed due to insufficient drainage and blocked pipes which are therefore not available for use by the pupils, impacting negatively on pupils promptly attending class following key transition points in the school day."
The report added: "Due to the need for additional accommodation for learning and teaching: there is currently no staffroom which impacts negatively on staff wellbeing and morale, and there is restricted access to the library."
The inspection of the 575-pupil high school was carried out in December, around a month after an Audit Office report warned that the condition of Northern Ireland’s schools’ estate is deteriorating and the current strategy for managing it is unsustainable.
The report said a new approach is required from Stormont ’s Department of Education to make better use of limited funding for maintenance and capital investment.
Comptroller and Auditor General Dorinnia Carville’s said her findings suggested the department “does not have a full understanding” of the true condition of the schools’ estate.
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