Hadley Learning Community, Telford
Facts and figures
- An inclusive environment for over 420 primary pupils, 1,200 secondary pupils, 150 pupils with severe and profound learning difficulties, aged 4 to 16 years
- Services value: £105m (£70m capital)
- Our investment: £3.8m
- 740 rooms: Primary, secondary, special, infant and junior schools; learning resource centre; and children's centre, 150-seat theatre; sports, leisure and arts centre
- Versatile social space
- One-stop-shop Interserve solution
- Community involvement: Engineering Specialist Status to help students, local firms and employees develop their skills
Whole-life learning – 21st century learning
The Hadley Learning Community (HLC) is the UK's first "all-through" school, a unique fusion of several schools in one, extending into family and adult education for the community.
Delivered by an Interserve consortium for the Borough of Telford and Wrekin, it is an exciting development and represents a template for future schools. It offers a solution both to the problems of depressed inner cities and the troubles of rural areas faced with families' complex needs.
This ground-breaking concept aims to share facilities and an educational ethos across all age groups and to address the problem of regression as children pass from one phase of education to the next. This is a well-recognised issue where the changes in surroundings, classmates and teaching style combine to unsettle many children and cause their academic performance to slip backwards, sometimes by as much as a year. The transition between educational stages promotes staff collaboration and means that children’s confidence remains high as they enter their new school.
Built in less than two years, the HLC offers a solution by bringing together nursery, primary and secondary facilities under a single roof and under a single Principal. Additionally, the Bridge School provides education to children with severe mental and physical disabilities up to the age of 18.
The Jigsaw facility, which is located within two miles of HLC, is a special school, which delivers educational facilities to children with behavioural problems. This establishment is sub-contracted by the Council with facilities services provided by Interserve.
Services
We also offer facilities management services in the school, including catering, cleaning, security, estates management, mechanical and electrical maintenance and the reception and helpdesk areas, which are integral to the PFI project. Early involvement of the facilities management team enabled us to embed the Facilities Management processes in the project timetable. As a result, the transition from construction to operation went smoothly and we were able to support the teaching staff in their huge task of getting a major school up and running from a standing start.
Achievements
With the HLC now fully open, expectations have been exceeded. The children have a great learning environment with a fresh and inspiring atmosphere; the community has access to an excellent range of facilities and can feel more involved in the education of the children; and everyone, including Telford and Wrekin Council, the Principal and Interserve, has a school to be proud of.
The Community centre, which is open to the public, further engages the Community and enables them to use sports facilities and to hire the facilities and hold out-of-school-hours clubs.
The delivery dates in the tight timetable were achieved and the team completed additional areas ahead of schedule, making the complex mobilisation more manageable. The contract was signed in March 2005 and the secondary school was handed over in September 2006 followed by the remainder of the school in January 2007.
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