Bournemouth Council have accepted £150,000 from The Department of Education to begin a £10 million improvement scheme on Bourne Academy and the Bishop of Winchester.
A council cabinet meeting on Wednesday made an agreement to act as the government’s client to ensure the provision of work on both school academies, starting with Bourne Academy receiving a fund of £40,000.
Councillor Barry Goldbart, cabinet member for Education and Children’s Services said: “We have not given the go-ahead to begin building yet, but the builders have been selected and they need to tell us how they are going to do it and how much the materials will cost from our budget.
“We have made an agreement to spend the money and the balance will be met by next year.”
Initially the improvement proposal was a £600 million plan scheme to develop four schools in Bournemouth and five in Poole, however, due to government cut backs it was refined to two in Bournemouth and two in Poole.
Bourne-academy on Hadow Road which changed its name from KingsHigh in 2010, will receive funding to rebuild, refurbish and transform the lessons with the help of the council monitoring the delivery of improvements.
Mr Goldbart added: “The news is good but it does not mean the education will get better, what is needed is improvement of teaching.
“However, the excitement around the fresh new building should encourage more teachers to want to come to these schools to teach. Academies do tend to be more successful, firstly they improve the build which results in an improvement in the quality of teaching.”
