Why are we fundraising?

The background
St Joseph’s temporary classrooms, which currently house all of our Key Stage 2 pupils (more than 50% of the school population), are in a worsening state of repair. Originally intended as temporary structures, these units have now been in place for many years. Their wooden structures are rotting away and their roofs leaking. Cold in Winter and hot in Summer, they are expensive to heat and difficult to ventilate. More importantly, these classrooms are separate from the test of the school and children have to go outside to get to the school hall, other classrooms and the toilets.

Aside from being a far from ideal teaching and learning environment, these classrooms are also a continual drain on our school’s resources, with the need for regular maintenance and repair work.

While we continue to do all we can to ensure that these units provide a safe environment in which to teach our pupils, we are now staring to lose the battle to maintain them. The time has come to begin working towards replacing these temporary classrooms with a new, permanent state-of-the-art building, integrated with the rest of the school.

The £100,000 Challenge
Initial estimates based on provisional architects’ plans indicate that the cost of our new build will be somewhere in the region of £1million (this figure not only reflects our desire to provide the best possible learning environment, but also the highest levels of health and safety regulations). As a Catholic Voluntary Aided School, St Joseph’s needs to raise the first 10% of the overall building cost. The remaining £900,000 will be funded by central and local government, through the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

The Building Fund Committee have set a target of five years to reach the £100,000 target running from September 2006 to September 2011. All money donated to the St Joseph’s School Building Fund will belong to St Joseph’s and can only be used for St Joseph’s school – we have our own separate bank account for this.

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