Had a phone call about 20 minutes ago from a friend who has heard on the internet (via Myspace) that our mutual children's secondary school is on fire.
On looking out of the loft window I can clearly see an awful lot of smoke, and OH said he heard sirens. The school is only about 500 yards from my house.
Oldest daughter says she's been chatting on MSN with her friends, who say about 50% of the school is aflame. I'm hoping that's just rumour, but I have an awful feeling that it may be true.
What a horrible thing to happen. And gcses/A levels are just around the corner. :(
How awful...............you hear of this sort of thing so often.
I know, you do hear of it so much. It happened to someone on another forum I used to post on a few months ago. And I didn't realise until now quite why that poster was so upset about it.
It feels somewhat personal when it's your own school and your own children affected. I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I asked my daughter why on earth someone would want to do this - because if she's right about which parts are affected, it has to be arson, since they're separate buildings - and she said that in a school of almost 2,000 people, there are bound to be some what she terms "radgie kids".
I become speechless every time I hear wanton destruction, on the news yesterday some kids fired a new playground......................WHY!
It never crossed my mind when I was a kid to do anything like that.
Star I can't understand it either.... but I'm willing to point the finger at the media. If some kids see arson as 1) a way out of school 2) "look at what I did because it's on TV" , then there are those kids out there that will do just that, sadly.
DenBee, so sorry to hear about this. It's the disruption to the youngsters' education that makes me more angry.
Not to mention the millions it will cost to rebuild and reequip. The disruption to the youngsters' education.
how awful it must be a real worry for you DenBee. :'(
Thanks all. I've been trawling news sites/local radio, but can't find any details of it as yet. I'm hoping that means it's not as serious as we thought, so here's hoping. We did see an awful lot of smoke, but any lottier who's has a bonfire knows that sometimes there's more smoke than fire. :)
Oldest daughter wants to walk around and have a look today, but I'm not sure just how much we'll be able to see from the path. I suppose we'll know for sure on Tuesday when they're due to go back.
There is a complex of council retirement bungalows right behind the school. Those people must have been very upset and worried last night.
Silly me, I forgot to check the obvious place for news - YouTube. ::) Found 7 videos on there when I searched for "Whickham school fire", some of them posted pretty much at the time it was happening. Oh the intrepidity of youth.
Edited to add - local radio says the music room was destroyed, and that police believe it was started deliberately.
It is awful, my granddaughter's school went up in flames to. that was arson but the mindless yobs that did it were never traced.
A lovely new school is almost up now, and the pupils are so excited and it is so modern. so some good has come out of disaster, but it has cost millions to build the new one though
Bridgehouse
In case you're worried about your kids' work- My niece's school had a fire in her GCSE year and all her art coursework was detroyed. Heartbreaking at the time but it didn't affect her results- she went on to do A levels, got all A's and is going on to study deign at uni next year!
Update from my friend is that her OH went up to the school at 6.30am to have a look at the damage. He told the PC on duty that he was a member of the Parents' Forum (he is, as am I), and was let past the gate.
The music block is gone, as reported. But also destroyed is the staff common room, the sixth form common room, and the library, where the IT suite was. Goodness knows how much coursework was kept in those areas.
I was worried about coursework, Caroline, but not my daughter's (cos I'm big-hearted, me ;) ). I'm sure there will be contingency plans in place. It's still nausea-inducing though. I actually had a gippy tum when I got up this morning, and I'm sure that's why.
I've become a shocking worrier since I had kids. ::)
Just looked at a couple of the you-tube movies. Some people are sick sick sick. What monsters will they grow into? What will their children grow into?
Hi, there are no words of wisdom I can offer except my love to you all, staff, kids , Mums and Dads.
I am truly sorry that you have had to experience this.
XX Jeannine
Thank you Jeannine. :)
Oldest daughter seems to have got over any shock - she wants to take a walk around a have a look later. ::)
Though to give her her due when I told her just which part of the school was burned down, her immediate thought was for the pupils who will actually be affected.
What a little darling.
Trouble is with something like this, same as losing our school to the floods, many kids are traumatised by it. School is often more of a home than their own home is and they feel their own foundations have been toppled.
It does come right in the end though and usually better than it was.
Our local high school was torched last year, we even know who did it, he was 9 , it is a family that I work with,but nothing was done to him. Most of the school was saved though.The kid in question and his family had to move though as the other kids harrassed them so much.
XX Jeannine
:'( So sad to hear the terrible news Denbee, it really does make you feel ill. Fingers crossed that things will work out better than you may think. Keep us posted as things progress!
Sadly on Thursday afternoon (where I live) a major fire has gutted a 19th century building which is used as a campus for the local agriculture college. The outside walls still remain, but the rest has gone......thankfully as it was the Easter break most students had gone home but the people who did remain managed to evacuate the building. I believe all livestock and horses (I think they stable at least a 100 horses) are also okay. I was walking my dog across the fields at the time of the fire and the smoke was awful. I could hear loads of sirens over the hour I was out and knew something awful was happening, that was sickening in its self, but at the time I had no idea it was our lovely agricultural college. When it was confirmed it was really upsetting of course for all the obvious reason, but also for the fact that that is a very historical building that is now gone forever and can never be replaced. It has been on our local news and it was horrifying to watch. The firefighters did their very best and were amazing as ever!! They used all the resources they had got and more to try to save the magnificent building but alas it was not to be. Have not heard as yet what caused the fire.
Anyway I digress Denbee... sorry!
Will be thinking of you and hope regardless of this bad news you can still enjoy your Easter! xxxx
What an awful loss and it will disrupt so many peoples lives. :(
As a adult I feel as horrified at any vandelism but it brought back memories of a 12 year old me that hated school so much I used to will the place to burn down!!! I hasten to add that it didn,t cross my mind to physically help it but it was a good job I wasn,t Steven Kings Carrie I can tell you
marg
I have to admit to smiling at some of the more innocent comments below the YouTube videos along the lines of "wahey, no school next week", because I dare say at that age that would have been exactly my own response.
Actually I remember the winter when I was in first year senior school (1972). Three day weeks, on the weeks we went in at all, because the miners' strikes caused fuel shortages. We were over the moon. :)
The local paper has put an item in about the fire. According to that the library/IT suite and music rooms were undamaged. Much better news than I expected. Still not good, but not as bad as initially reported.
How awful for everyone involved DenBee :(.
Many years ago, a couple of pupils annoyed at being given detentions (!) got drunk & burnt down a good part of my school :(. The whole science block burnt down most of the art, CDT & home ec classrooms that were part of that block were smoke damaged and the languages staff room was badly damaged by another fire they had set :(. Some teachers lost all of their work from the past x years & a lot of coursework was lost as well. It took a long time for the school to recover & most science classes had to be held in temporary accomodation until a new block could be built...of course the new buildings & decoration were rather swish when they were finished and the tropical frogs who were rescused from the fire seemed to have liked the heat because they started breeding straight after ;D...but it was very upsetting, to see most of the science teachers crying at their losses was enough to make the whole school hate those who had done it >:(
I hope the damage isn't too bad DenBee & the school recovers well.