School plans £1m overhaul to cope with demand

Plans were announced yesterday for the £1m investment at Rossett School in Harrogate in the year that staff and pupils will be celebrating its 40th anniversary.

The Academies Trust has given a grant for the work, which will see temporary buildings replaced with six new classrooms at a cost of £800,000 to cope with the growing numbers of pupils at the school. From September, there will be two extra classes in Year Seven after a rise in the number of children applying. The school already has 1,424 students, but pupil numbers will rise to 1,539 in September.

The school’s ageing boiler will also be replaced with a more efficient model at a cost of £200,000. Future plans include installing solar panels to cut the carbon emissions and reduce energy bills.

Headteacher Pat Hunter said: “Given that the school is oversubscribed, [the new classrooms] will provide essential accommodation for the pupils who are joining us in September. There’s also a growing demand for places in the sixth form, so extra space is going to be increasingly important over the next few years.”

The re-development at Rossett School will help cope with a population boom in recent years which has mirrored a national trend with a rise in birth rates over the last decade, prompting the need for more school places.

Other schools in the region are having to look to major expansion plans to cope with demand. The Yorkshire Post revealed in March that Sheffield Council had undertaken a number of projects, with more than 2,500 primary places added in the city in the last five years. The latest project has seen a £3.8m extension completed at Owler Brook Nursery, Infant and Junior School to create an extra 150 places.