Community: Building For The Future


This month spades hit the ground in the latest ambitious construction project at Mosley School.

It’s the final stage of what has been a long and expensive plan to drag time-worn buildings up to modern educational standards.

Three years ago, the school facilities were quite different - a beautiful, well used, listed grammar school building from 1856 and a dilapidated 1960s secondary modern that were united as one school, but whose separate buildings gave children a great excuse to be late for class as they dawdled on the walk between the two.

With the help of £20 million from the government’s ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme, the crumbling 1960s construction was finally replaced by a new state-of-the-art school with up-to-date IT facilities, big, bright classrooms and with a much shorter walk to the listed part, which also received a facelift and some interior re-design. It opened for business in October 2012 and staff and pupils alike have been delighted with the new facilities.

But the modernising hasn’t stopped there. The final stage of the project will be a new leisure facility for the Sports department, this time funded by a £1.75 million investment from the school itself. Helen Cooper, the school’s Business Manager who is overseeing the work, explained how the development will enhance the school experience, for pupils, staff and the wider community.

“There’s a huge amount of excitement surrounding the project. Not only will it make it possible to walk between the different sports buildings without going outside, it will create one of the largest, most modern sports facilities of any school in the West Midlands.”

“The new sports hall will be marked out for basket ball, netball, five a side football, cricket and badminton. It’ll have retractable, tiered seating for 350 people. This means we’ll be able to hold assemblies in there, as well as performances, and we’ll also be able to hire it to external groups outside school hours. So it’ll be much more of a community space, enabling us to invite more people from the area into the school.”

B13 will be following the progress of the project, so keep reading!

(Published in 'Moseley B13' October 2013)

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