Hall Orchard School

Client: Hall Orchard Church of England Primary School

Location: Barrow upon Soar, Loughborough

Value: £750,000

Contract: Traditional Procurement

Stage: Complete

 

The original school consisted of three main buildings with two double classrooms in mobile accommodation. The Victorian building had two classrooms, a computer room and the pre-school room. An extension in 1955 connected all the school buildings for the first time and had three classrooms, cloakrooms and toilets. The Orchard building housed eight class bases, the main hall, large stepped studio, cookery area and a library. Outside there were two large play areas, a sizable school field and a secure play area for the pre-school children.

 

The school hall had an internal floor area of 165m2 but served as a corridor from the infant class to the junior classes. As such the delivery of key curricular activities including PE were affected by the constraints.

 

The school hall is a very important environment for the delivery of the curriculum and would come under increasing pressure with the introduction of universal infant free school meals.

 

The proposed extension was to the field side of the existing hall, which would give a net gain in floor area of 170m². This would give extra hall space, storage and access. The two halls would be connected by a folding partition which can be completely retracted to make one large space, or enable the two areas to be used individually, to increase flexibility and help to deliver the curriculum.

 

The proposal also featured a staircase to the new area of the hall and a platform lift to benefit accessibility throughout the school due to it being built on many levels.

 

There would also be a new external entrance/exit to the new hall area, which would ease the pressure on the existing small entrance lobby to the school when larger events are held in the hall.

 

In addition to the extension of the main building an old caretakers bungalow stood abandoned and in a poor state of repair across the footpath. It was proposed that with a little tlc, refurbishment and a couple of extensions, this would become home to the pre-school children which would free up desperately needed space within the main school. The bungalow would become self-contained with its own kitchen, dining room, storage and office, and would be used all year round for holiday activities out of term time and also a before and after school club.