Expansion building work information

The building work for the school expansion is due to start on Saturday 9th November 2019. This will mean some changes in routine as detailed below.

Side gate and side walkway

The side gate and side walkway will be out of use from 11th November, and this means that there will only be two main points for entry to and exit from the school. These will be the main door leading to the school office area and the main school gate which leads onto the playground.
In order to establish safe routines, Nursery should be brought to the foyer at the main office area (Mrs Phillips), where Nursery staff will be waiting to collect them. At the end of the Nursery session the children will be brought back to the main office and dismissed to parents and carers. This also applies to any children involved with ‘30 hours’ provision.

Reception children will need to line up on the playground in the same way as KS1 do. Reception teachers will collect pupils from the playground and bring them back to their line at the end of the day and then dismiss the children to parents one at a time. Any questions about the day can be sorted following the dismissal of all of the class.

Reception, KS1 and KS2 will all enter and exit the building via the ramp. KS2 children will follow their normal procedures, with the exception of 5L who will use the classroom door in the Early Years outdoor area. KS1 will all used a new and enlarged door on the side of 5L to enter and exit the building and Reception will be led into their classrooms via the outside doors in the play area.

In order to keep the area as safe as possible we will be closing off the ramp and Early Years outdoor area to parents and carers (with the exception of OOSC parents).
All OOSC children will use the main playground gate to enter and exit the site. As delivery to and collection from OOSC normally takes place significantly earlier/ later than normal school time,  parents will be allowed to use the ramp to access the OOSC building.   
 
Significant reduction of Playground

The playground will be significantly reduced in size for many months, because part of it will be used as a storage site for building materials, and as an access point for vehicles. A new entrance/exit for works traffic will be created directly onto the playground from Maple Road, and the playground will be partitioned by using large hoardings. We estimate that we will lose the use of approximately half of the playground space because of this; however, we will gain all of this back at the end of the works next summer. We will manage this reduced space as follows:

At the beginning and end of the day, it is imperative that ALL parents wait in the allocated area.
Reception and KS1 will have different playtimes and at lunch only one cohort will have outside play at any one time. Indoor play sessions will be led by Lunchtime staff.

We respectfully ask that all non OOSC children arrive no earlier than 8.30am and leave the playground as soon as they are dismissed at home time. 

There will not be enough space for children to play safely on the playground before or after school. We therefore ask that parents keep children with them until the bell rings and also on the home time bell.

On very wet days, we ask parents to delay bringing children to school until just before 8.45am. This does not apply to children coming in for early intervention, early swimmers or Nursery.
  
It is important to note that whilst the change in procedures will not commence until Monday 11th November 2019, we will be starting the new procedures for Nursery from the first week back (4th November). We feel that giving Nursery an additional week to get used to new entry/ exit points will prove really valuable for them. 

Operation Park Safe
In order to keep everyone safe, a new parking scheme will be introduced after half term. The scheme which will be introduced and managed by the local police is called Operation Park Safe.
The scheme involves ten representatives of the school, (staff, parents or local residents), who carefully  monitor parking in the surrounding area. Following training by the police, the representatives will be tasked with taking photographs of any unsafe and/ or illegal  parking which will be sent to the police. It will then be up to the police to decide on further action, although parents should be aware that fines will be issued if the police consider it necessary.

I hope that all of our families appreciate that these measures are about keeping the children safe through what will be a challenging period.

Scope of the works

The map below shows some detail of the extent, positioning and timing of the work. This page will show updates as the work progresses.