Strule sod-cutting to be boycotted by high school

The director and governors of a Tyrone school in the County must boycott the grass reduction ceremony on a shared education campus in the historical later in the fiction of disativals in the plans for its new school building.

Director Christos Gaitatzis said that Omagh High School had faced “a constant battle” in proposals on the Struul Education campus and the boycott was a “last resort.”

The campus is the largest school construction project in Northern Ireland and the long -awaited grass cut has arrived after years of delays.

The Department of Education (DE) said that it was disappointed by the measure and that school requests were considered.

The campus involves six schools and more than 4000 students, who move to the site of the old base of Lisanelly’s army.

Omagh High School is one of the six due to obtaining a new building in Strule.

However, despite the work that begins on the site in 2013, Arvalee Special School is the only school that will be built so far.

The others expect new buildings are Loreto Grammar School, Sacred Heart College, Omagh Academy and Christian Brothers Grammar School.

The project has been plagued with delays and growing costs: in March 2024, the estimated cost was £ 374 million, above the initial estimate of £ 168.9 million.

But construction will finally begin and a grass reduction ceremony for the campus will be a hero on Wednesday.

Gaitatzis said that Omagh High School would not be represented in the lawn cut, because his new school building planned in Strule was unsatisfactory.

“The school is very small for us,” he said.

“It is built for 450 students: this is our current number and is increasing.

“There are significant areas within the school that are building that they will not really sacrifice, we believe that the necessary prospective growth required.

“Therefore, we have significant areas in the school that we request adjustments, and these adjustments have not made the leg.”

Gaitatzis said the school had raised its concerns with the Department of Education (DE) “on multiple occasions.”

“They need to listen to educationalists, people who work in schools every day,” he said.

He said he had urged the department to make “the necessary adjustments to build modern schools for the future.”

“We feel that none of our recommendations was heard,” he said.

A department spokesman said that Omagh High’s design requests were considered by the Struce Project team.

“While everything is possible to respond constructively to the specific feedback of the school, there are a variety of requests that no new construction of the school within the heritage would receive typicular,” they said.

“Equity in school property is a critical principle, and all designs must align with the standards of the School Design Manual of the Department of Education.”

Gaitatzis said that the canteen in the new planned school was too small, almost half the size of the current school canteen.

“There has been a clean thought,” he said.

“They had some plans for a decade and those plans were reviewed very quickly to try to pass them through the line without making significant changes.”

Gaitatzis added that Strule was “a great opportunity to do something great.”

“They are going to do something simply standard, just something that will mark a box,” he said.

“We are there, this position now because we know that we are correctly in what we request so that the future of the students of Omagh High School is best to be.”

He said that the “most frustrating part” was that “people believe that because they planned somewhat 10 years ago, it is still valid.”

“We know ourselves, it is not, see how technology is moving forward, see how people have changed the way of learning.

“It was a golden opportunity to build an adequate future campus to have to speak during the next 50, 60 years and I think we are doing something simply standard.”