Topping out ceremony at new £27m school in city

A set of Hellerup stairs – a wide staircase which students can sit on during classes and breaks – is one of the many new features in the new Kelvin Hall school, which includes a learning resource centre, large performance hall and “outstanding” creative arts, music and drama facilities.

The school, which is due to open next Easter, is being built behind the old Kelvin Hall school on Bricknell Avenue, which will be demolished.

Yesterday staff and representatives from Balfour Beatty performed a traditional topping out – attaching an evergreen branch to the highest part of the building.

Headteacher Sarah Smythe said: “The new building will be a fantastic asset to the school and to the local community so I am very much looking forward to celebrating its progress so far.”

Five schools, built as part of the Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme, have now been opened, with Kelvin Hall representing the sixth. The new development will allow the school to increase in size by a third to around 1,500 pupils.

Hull Council had its £400m BSF funding approved by the former Government before the General Election and escaped the worse of the cuts to the project announced by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Spending on school buildings spiralled from £600m in 1996-97 to £6.8bn in 2009-10, according to official figures. An independent review earlier this year calls for future new buildings to be based on “standardised drawings”, effectively meaning that new schools could be identical to each other.