Leading article: Schools need good buildings

The first head teacher to be knighted for his services to education in Tony Blair's first government hit the nail on the head when he spoke of the most important thing in turning round a failing school. Sir Geoff Hampton, the head of Northicote school in Wolverhampton, the first school to come out of special measures under Ofsted's inspection regime, was adamant that improvements to dilapidated school buildings had to come first. "Having a school that looks good is about telling children they're worth something," he says. That is why the Prime Minister's announcement of a 15-year programme to refurbish every secondary school in England is good news. Margaret Thatcher's political guru, Sir Keith Joseph, may have thought that buildings didn't matter but those in charge of schools nowadays certainly don't agree.

For years under previous Conservative governments, spending on school infrastructure was squeezed and squeezed with the result that a generation of schoolchildren could be forgiven for thinking that a decent education in decent surroundings was not a top priority for ministers of the day. Blair's programme, made up of a mixture of new school buildings and a renovation of existing stock, will ensure that - over a period of time - it will not just be the youngsters in the swanky new privately sponsored city academies that enjoy state-of-the art school buildings, but those in bog-standard comprehensives, too.

Of course, the programme announced last week referred only to secondary schools. Maybe it is right to concentrate on this age group because it is the one in which youngsters are most prone to become switched off from learning. But it is worth recalling the plea of David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, to ministers not to forget primary and special schools, too. After all, youngsters spend the first seven years of their educational life in primary schools. If they have to put up with leaking roofs and crumbling plaster, they may well enter secondary schools with a built-in negative image of schooling.

The Department for Education and Skills is emphasising that there will be extra money for local education authorities to tap in to for the primary sector as well. The overall sum for school infrastructure will rise to a record £5bn a year in April 2005. Let us hope this is enough to make inroads into repairing primary schools as well. It is the right of every child to be taught in decent conditions.