Yarlswood Immigration Detention Centre opens its new education facility

In December 2006, the contract for operating the centre was awarded to Serco Ltd, who took    over the management, operation and maintenance of Yarl's Wood, in April 2007. Yarl's Wood has become the main removal centre for women and families. Bed space totals 405 and is divided as follows: 284 single female bed spaces and121 family bed spaces. All rooms are twin-bedded and interconnected in pairs, to allow families to be located together.

A well thought out and cleverly constructed set of classrooms have been built. They were officially opened on 20th November 2009, by Tom Riall, the Chief Executive of Serco Civil Government, in the presence of 50 invited guests drawn from local service providers, the council and members of Parliament.

The result is really inspiring. Two large airy wooden cabin structures containing a couple of classrooms each have been placed approximately 15 feet apart and a conservatory has been built in between. The result is four large airy classrooms and a large atrium area in the middle, where lessons and games can also take place.
In his speech marking the opening of the facility, Tom Riall paid tribute to the thought and ingenuity which went into the design and construction.

He said ‘Yarlswood are able to boast a school, which I believe is the same standard that you would see anywhere in the wider community. I believe this is a real tribute to the teaching staff and management here. However, it wasn't achieved without the efforts of our partners and I would like to pay tribute to them. They were, the Office of the Children's Champion, NHS Bedfordshire, Bedfordshire Social Services, Surestart and of course, the UK Borders Agency, without whom it would not have been possible. I want to mention in particular Sarah Edwards, who has been a tremendous support to us since we started here at Yarlswood.

I would also like to pay a particular tribute to Dawn Elaine, the Director of Yarlswood. In her first year here, she has really achieved remarkable progress, as this new facility partly testifies to.’

Tom then went on to say that the past year while Dawn Elaine had been in charge, had probably been the most high profile, from a media perspective, that Yarlswood have experienced since the fire. Hardly a week had gone by without a high profile visit from one organisation or another. For instance, the Home Affairs Select Committee. He paid tribute to the way Dawn had handled those visits and gave credit to the way that this approach had filtered down through to the staff and that their well-deserved sense of pride in what Yarlswood have established and achieved.

He also took time to acknowledge that the staff at Yarlswood do a very difficult job and sometimes in very trying circumstances. He believes that they do incredibly well and he took the opportunity to personally thank them. He mentioned several people by name and these are: John Tolland, Vickie Murray, Ashley Deverell, Jeannie McChlery and Jen Hill.

We took a tour of the classrooms. Some are fully plumbed and prepped, so the wet part of education, such as arts and cookery, can be taught. The older children aged 11 to 16 years old have a classroom dedicated to them, as do the 5 to 10 year olds.

After the opening, all the guests were treated to food and a display of children's music and dancing in the large indoor sports hall, located just across the play area for the new school facility.