A FEW of you will no doubt remember the front page story when the roof at a Worcester school collapsed.

Children at Perdiswell Primary School were forced to take lessons in the sports hall and computer room when the roof of a classroom caved in.

Plaster was strewn across the floor and the electrics had to be isolated after rain forced the ceiling to finally give way.

Children's schoolwork was rain-sodden and some youngsters were forced to have lessons in bad light before a solution could be found.

It sounds like something from a Third World country hit by a natural disaster, but the truth of the matter was that the funding wasn't available to fix the problem.

Luckily, that has all changed. The media spotlight can have done nothing but help to prompt action quicker.

But in reality this shouldn't have been allowed to happen.

Hopefully it won't happen again. Children should never have to be educated in such damning conditions.

The Department of Education and Employment (DfEE) announced last week that Worcestershire's schools will receive their share of a multi-million pound fund over the next three years to help refurbish classrooms.

Every school, according to its size, will be given cash for repair work.

Worcestershire LEA will receive funds of £9m. It is also set to receive an extra £1.5m in the same period to assist schools with projects.

This appears to be all well and good, but schools will have to part-fund any grant for which they apply.

Secretary of State for Education and Employment David Blunkett announced that 800 schools in the West Midlands would benefit from the cash.

This huge investment is further evidence of our determination to improve school standards ensuring that children learn in decent, warm and well-equipped classrooms, said Mr Blunkett.

Getting the basics right is not just about literacy and numeracy it also means putting the right facilities in place so that teachers can teach and children can learn.

He has also published research showing the importance of well-maintained and well-equipped schools in raising standards throughout education, but then, that's something we all knew.

For Perdiswell Primary School this Government windfall is a little late, as governors have already battled successfully to have the problem solved.

But parent governor Bob Marley says that for the Bilford Road school this funding is good news.

Any money for education is good news," said Mr Marley.

We're delighted that more funds are available. Perdiswell has done a pretty good job over the past few years, obtaining money to provide for security and funding towards new IT resources.

It seems that, unfortunately, little bits are available as opposed to anything of significance, so you can apply for lots of small grants, but for the bigger jobs it's more difficult, said Mr Marley, whose two sons are pupils at the school.

This windfall is certainly too late to have stopped the problem of water coming through the school roof.

The roof was nearly 30-years-old when it was only meant for 10, so this is 20 years too late.

David Blunkett has to address the fact that it's not resources that improve schoolchildren's standards, but the teacher that they're being taught by.

It doesn't matter if you have a brand new all-purpose-built classroom with all the equipment, if the teacher's not good enough that's an even bigger problem.

Short, sharp fixes of money is shallow.

Luckily the primary school has been able to find funding for its roof.

Phase one of the programme has been completed, the roof has been completely rebuilt and one waterproof covering is now in place.

Pupils are being taught in the affected classrooms before the second layer is applied.

Over the summer holidays, the classrooms will be completely redecorated with new carpets to replace the rain-sodden flooring.

The new funding has yet to be made available to Worcestershire LEA but, when it is, schools like Perdiswell can be rest assured that there is hope if a roof caves in.

The county council welcomes the latest injection of funds announced last week for new school building and improvement money, said Corrie Strickland for Worcestershire County Council.

However, more money is going to schools' own budgets now, rather than coming through the LEA, so we, as a county council, have less to spend on large building projects.

Schools are now receiving more money directly into their own budgets from the DfEE to spend on individual schemes.

The total backlog of capital repairs which are the responsibility of the county council, stands at £15m, so although this money will help, there is still a lot of work to be done," said Miss Strickland.

Since last week's announcement, education and property officers have been going through the figure to ensure we make effective use of the money by targeting the schemes of greatest need first.

We're hopeful that last week's announcement will mean we can tackle the outstanding priority cases from last year's New Deal list.

We are also keen to work in partnership with our schools and their local communities to make effective use of the Seed Challenge allocation.

This enables schools to raise money locally and work with the county council to make best use of cash that is available for individual school projects.