Students and teachers may have had a well-earned half term break, but the work never stops in the Aspire building; holiday times are when important maintenance and building work is carried out, allowing outside contractors to move freely around the building, and this half term saw the installation of some brand new opening windows.
Headteacher Mr Woods explained: “The purpose of this significant investment is to support ventilation into each classroom, which in turn will improve the climate for learning during the summer months when many of the classrooms on the upper floors become extremely hot. During COVID times the ventilation system has performed admirably in terms of providing fresh air into classrooms, however, this venture will further support this process going forward."
A number of opening windows have now been installed with more to follow in the next holiday break.
Meanwhile, other bits of work carried out included the annual portable appliance testing (PAT) of all electrical appliances and equipment in the building ensuring they are safe to use. With so many pieces of technology and equipment it is imperative we have everything checked to keep everybody safe and prevent electrical accidents in Aspire. There is a visual examination, then the appliance is tested using a specialist PAT testing machine; if the equipment passes the test it gets a nice coloured sticker, this year being blue, but if it fails the faulty equipment is either repaired so that it will pass the test or recycled and replaced. This thorough safety check is always completed by an outside contractor every year.
Ms Matthews’ A3 room has had some new benching and trunking for power installed to accommodate her new set of laptops so that they can be set up around the edge of the room, giving her more space to teach in the centre when IT is not the main focus of the lesson.
And finally, 27 new PCs have been installed in A5, replacing the aging Citrix system with new HP mini desktop Windows machines sporting 24” widescreen monitors to aid our students in their learning.
