Stanborough New-build

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Mr T Braybrook, Deputy Headteacher, writes:

You may have seen in last week’s Stanborough Times, pictures of the Mayor, Councillor Roger Trigg, opening our new building.  This was a fantastic day for all those involved in the project and the end of a very long journey!

The story starts in 2015 when Hertfordshire County Council approached the school about expanding in size.  Following detailed discussions on the issue, a grant of £4.8 million was awarded to the school in 2018.  This grant covered the following:

  • A new classroom block that now houses our Humanities and Modern Foreign Languages faculties. Also, new students toilets, staff offices and student support services;
  • Extra science laboratories;
  • Extensions to the car parking capacity of the school;
  • Expansion of cycle storage;
  • Conversion of existing facilities to increase the number of art rooms.

As you would expect with a project of this size and complexity, the road is never straight!  A number of issues delayed the building work, so it wasn’t until the Autumn Term of 2019 that we finally saw the diggers moving on site and real signs of progress!

In March 2020, when things were going to plan, the pandemic hit.  This led to a shutdown of the site for a while and then a phased re-opening.  This obviously delayed the planned finish date, but with a lot of hard work from the contractors, T J Evers, they have delivered the building in time for students to use it from the start of this term.  Yes, there are a few ‘bits and pieces’ to finish off, but in the current environment we are happy to be able to have more classrooms to space students out around the school.

The classrooms in the block are bright and large and they each have a state of the art interactive white board.  The block has a controlled ventilation scheme and the new toilet facilities are a welcome addition to the school.

We are also very pleased with our new science laboratories that have not only been fitted out with the latest equipment, but are also a very different design to the others with the separation of classroom and practical zones within the same room.

Looking at the future, the old classrooms that housed Compass will soon be demolished.  They currently house the music department.  We are now looking forward to the next development to improve the school’s already amazing facilities.  The new music and drama block is a separate scheme.  This has been funded via a £1.4 million grant direct from the ESFA Condition Improvement Fund.  Work is progressing well, and we look forward to this block opening in January 2021 (I am sure the music and drama departments would heartily agree with this statement).

Stanborough already has some amazing facilities for its students.  These new additions will make our student accommodation even more incredible and allow teachers and support staff to deliver some amazing learning experiences for our students in the years to come.