School up and down the country opened their doors to the new academic year this week. But while many youngsters walk into plush new classrooms with all the latest educational aids, thousands of pupils across Sandwell will be returning to crumbling, out-of-date buildings.

Ten schools in the Black Country borough missed out on £125 million of Government cash when Education Minister Michael Gove ripped up the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

And despite a successful High Court challenge against Mr Gove’s decision, there seems little hope of a change of heart with the Tory minister’s announcement he was “not minded to fund the re-building of Sandwell’s schools”.

That means pupils in schools such as Cradley Heath’s Heathfield Foundation College and the Meadows Sports College, in Oldbury, can only look on with envy as shiny new BSF-funded facilities spring up elsewhere.

A few miles away, for example, a £17 million new school at Erdington’s Stockland Green Technology College opened in January and £17.5 million of work funded by the BSF started on Wolverhampton’s Coppice Performing Arts School in March this year.

Among Sandwell’s biggest failed-BSF bids was that of Wednesbury’s Stuart Bathurst RC High School, where £13.2 million was wanted to refurbish some classrooms and rebuild others, plus another £1.2 million for computer equipment.

Head teacher William Branney said: “The whole BSF thing was giving our school hope, but that was false hope based on false promises.

“We were hanging so much on this funding, for it to have been totally dismissed is like the Government saying that Sandwell isn’t worthy of access to 21st Century learning. Is that what Mr Gove’s saying to our pupils?”

There was similar bitter disappointment to hit Bristnall Hall Technology College, in Oldbury, which missed out on £20 million, plus £2 million for computer equipment, and Perryfields High School, in Oldbury, which was hoping for £18.5 million of BSF cash along with a further £2 million to overhaul computer equipment.

But perhaps the most worrying of situations is at Wednesbury’s Wood Green Academy, where asbestos-riddled buildings with narrow corridors and rickety old windows are just some of the problems.

Head teacher Pank Patel was looking for £14.1 million, with an additional £2.1 million for computer equipment.

“We’ve got lots of aged buildings, 1960s windows, asbestos-riddled buildings, narrow corridors and the site is split by a road – it’s just not fit for purpose in the 21st century,” he said.

“Luckily, we have had money for some new windows, but that was just £300,000, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the £14.1 million we were desperate for.”

Meanwhile, an £8 million refurbishment at Heathfield Foundation College had to be scrapped, along with a £2.5 million computer equipment project.

Philip Weale, acting deputy head teacher at the college, in Wrights Lanel, said: “The denial of the BSF funding is a massive blow, but thanks to our own independent building programme at the school we’re in a more fortunate position than perhaps other schools.”