FUTURE DEVELOPMENT PLANS

Building and Development Masterplan: an update

Accommodation has long been an issue at Shottery. The Manor is a lovely old building, but much of it is not suitable for teaching, and certainly not for full-size classes. The three flat-roofed buildings date from the school’s opening in the 1950s, and some areas of the school, have not been refurbished since then. Spaces like the hall and dining room were planned with rather smaller numbers of girls in mind, as were the number of classrooms. The provision of three temporary classrooms showed that the County recognised the school’s need for more space some years ago – but they have proved to be far from temporary and no longer provide satisfactory accommodation. Two successive Ofsted reports have identified accommodation as an issue – the March 2006 report, for instance, singling out the need for improved study accommodation for the sixth form, for indoor sports facilities and for general classrooms; and the Local Authority’s Asset Management Plan has also recognised that we have a Basic Need for four more classrooms, a science laboratory, and a sports hall, as well as needing more space for art, science, private study and other learning resources.

The Governors and I (writes the Head) have drawn up a Masterplan which provides a solution to these needs. It involves building a new classroom on top of the DT Workshop and demolishing the three temporary classrooms to build in that part of the site a learning resources centre incorporating sixth-form study space, seven classrooms (three replacing the huts), and a half-size sports hall. Knock-on effects of the new build, including the sports hall and new changing rooms at the back of the Hall, would benefit the Hall and Dining Room as well as many other areas of the school. The Masterplan has now been professionally costed, and the whole project, which is likely to cost in the region of £2m to £3m, could be phased in over a couple of years. The Plan has been presented to the Local Authority, and we have applied for the necessary capital funding – which is outside our normal annual budget – to enable building to start. We are currently at the stage of lobbying for that funding.
The developments that have taken place in recent years have been largely the result of our own efforts: the Stratford Language Centre (SLC), for instance, being funded directly from the DfES as part of becoming a Language College once we’d raised the initial £50,000; and the first 55% of the capital for the Stratford Academy of Music (SAM) being raised through grants sought out by senior staff and our own fund-raising (eg through FOS) before the remaining 45% could be triggered from the County. From within our own budget last year, we refurbished the toilets in the practical building; and successful applications to the Wrefson Trust and the Town Trust led to matched funding from the County to enable us to convert a Textiles Room to a science laboratory and plan for the new science classroom.

I would dearly like to have some good news for you soon. We need these developments for the future of the school. We believe that it is important to work through the official channels for such an important project for a state-funded school, and I can assure parents that we are acting upon every opportunity for pressing the funding agencies for support. In anticipation of the fact that we are likely to need to supplement any grants we get by fund-raising, however, anybody willing to be involved in such an effort is invited to contact the Chair of the Marketing and Development Committee, Simon Ewing, via the School Office. The fund-raising efforts of FOS are already focused on projects that support these developments: FOS have supported the refurbishment of the existing science labs, the extension of the current tennis/netball courts to provide further courts and the refurbishment of the art studios. Your daughters’ education over the next few years could be greatly enhanced by these developments: let’s work together for them!

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