News update......WE WON!  On Friday 14th May the minister has agreed to rebuild Whitehouse Primary, thank you to everyone who has signed this petition and offered their support, work starts as early as next week!

Whitehouse Primary School was destroyed in an arson attack on July 18th 2009.

Catriona Ruane the Education Minister for Northern Ireland visited the charred remains of Whitehouse Primary School and stated that everything that could be done would be done to get the school rebuilt as soon as possible!

Ms Ruane has reneged on this promise,

Please show your support by singing our petition to rebuild Whitehouse Primary School

Here are a number of reasons as to why we believe we have a very just case for seeking approval for our new building project to proceed without any further delay:-

• Our project has very recently been reviewed and by March, 2010, it had ‘cleared all of its approval stages’ – it is ‘good to go’.
• Numerous officials at the Department of Education (DE) have advised the Minister of Education that it should be ‘signed off’.
• Public finances were/are available for the project. 
• The tendering process has been completed. 
•  Less public money will be required to build the new school than was expected (provided approval is given very soon).
•   Thousands and thousands of pounds of public money have already been spent taking the project through its planning phase. 
•  Any further delay/s will incur significant additional costs and put additional strain on the reduced Capital Budget, as the validation period for the existing tenders will soon end. The whole tendering process would then have to be repeated (at a significant cost) with the probability of the revised projected building costs being more expensive than the original costs were.
• The primary school is presently in temporary accommodation, since the ‘old’ school was destroyed in an arson attack in July, 2009.
• What sort of society would allow those responsible for the  wanton destruction of a place, where a society’s future is shaped and protected, be rewarded for their despicable act? 
•  Our temporary accommodation is ‘not fit for the purpose of delivering the N.I. Primary Curriculum, with ease’.  A ‘BAB Internal Memo’ dated 27.07.09 (from a DE Architect to Development Branch) reported that our present accommodation ‘does not comply with the Primary School Building Handbook and it cannot be considered as a permanent accommodation solution.’ (our emphasis). The report proceeds to list 10 main reasons (including health and safety and child protection concerns) as to why our current accommodation can only be considered as a temporary measure.
• Moreover our 2 nursery classes have been housed in mobile accommodation (with a much more limited floor area) since August, 2007. They moved out of their more permanent accommodation within the ‘old school’, at that time, as it was anticipated that the building phase of our project would commence in the 2007 – 2008 academic year!!!
• Press releases emanating from the DE in July, 2009, had, implicit within them, promises that everything possible would be done to expedite approval for the building of a new school on our old site (which is now a ‘cleared site’, ready to build on). 
•  The Primary school’s enrolment is presently 342 pupils. It has increased by 75% over the last 21 years and is due to increase further in September, 2010. The Nursery Unit accommodates 52 ‘full-time children’ and is always oversubscribed.
• As recently as 2008 the school received yet another glowing report from the Education and Training Inspectorate.
• It appears to many that our school community is being treated with injustice, inequality and a lack of integrity. Irrelevant afore mentioned