Alfred Sutton bulge part 2 public exhibition #rdg

I just got back from the public exhibition on the work to accommodate a second bulge class at Alfred Sutton. The exhibition runs to 7 PM tonight, Thursday – a perfect start to a Valentine's Day night out! I have blogged previously on other expansion public exhibitions here.

Briefly the plan is to locate a four classroom, two floor modular building south of the recent single floor modular building – taking up a small bit of playing field – and putting a temporary playground surface nearby expanding the playground area. Click on the image for a larger version.

A planning application will be submitted in the next month or so and detailed drawings will be available then online.

It is important that we have enough local school places for our children, but at the same time we need to hang onto as much of the playing field as possible and be mindful of the impact of expanding the school on the wider area – Crescent road for example is congested and in need of some footpath modernisation, a 20 mph limit etc.

At some point in the future a decision will have to be made as to whether Alfred Sutton should be permanently expanded.

I have copied and pasted a briefing note below with a bit more information.

"Alfred Sutton Primary School Expansion

Proposals to expand Alfred Sutton primary school are confined at this stage to introducing a a further modular unit behind the existing nursery unit. The new unit will be a 2 storey 4 classroom unit, providing sufficient capacity to manage the 2 additional bulge classes as they move through the school.

Officers briefed the A S governing body on Weds 23 January on progress to date which we are planning to see completed before the last week in August this year. At this point we have yet to appoint contractors, but have engaged modular building suppliers in a tendering process for the range of buildings required on all the educatuion expansion projects this year.

Whilst it is too early to confirm whether we will be seeking to formally expand Alfred Sutton to 3 Form Entry, we talked through the possibility with governors, and sought their informal view of whether they will be willing to support such a move, if or when asked. Simply unless we have a 2FE free school proposal in East Reading, the Council will need to establish those 2 forms of entry. Logic suggests that Alfred Sutton Primary and Newtown Primary are the only obvious for expansion in the East. At Newtown we can locate the additional children without a building extension. Not so of course at Alfred Sutton where we would need the purpose built new classroom block."