Space and privacy issues at new sixth form centre

A senior politician said he was "disappointed" changes weren't made to Guernsey's new sixth form centre before it opened at a temporary site last week.

The centre moved to the site of the former La Mare de Carteret school in Castel ahead of a permanent move to a campus at Les Ozouet.

A petition has been started by students due to complaints about inadequate space for studying and issues of privacy relating to bathrooms.

President of Education, Sport and Culture, Paul Montague said: "This is something that we knew about before school opened and I did work hard over the weekend to try and ensure that we got people from the States property unit in there to correct those problems."

Montague said he would not take responsibility for the move to the new site but problems with privacy to toilets and faulty facilities were issues he believed should have been resolved sooner.

As a former teacher, Montague said there were often snagging problems at the beginning of a school year and he anticipated all the necessary changes would be made within two weeks.

He said: "It wasn't the ideal move having to move down there, we all know that it was a decision taken a good few years ago because all the other contingencies were worse."

Parents and carers have been invited to the sixth form this Thursday and Montague encouraged islanders to attend.

When asked about the future of the centre, he said: "We're not taking anything off the table but we do need to get those students out of that building and while they're in that building we need to give them the best possible education we can."

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