A fantastic milestone has been achieved with the planning application now submitted to expand Heyford Park School in Oxfordshire. This exciting project has been in development for the last 2 years, carefully working with the school, Eynsham Partnership Academy Trust, and Oxfordshire County Council to explore and develop solutions to increase secondary pupil places to meet the needs of the expanding community at the former air force base.
This has been a particularly interesting and complex project to masterplan, with the existing secondary provision split across 2 sites, and with both primary and secondary schools sharing facilities. The design solution involves rationalising the 2 campus school by relocating the primary school to one site, allowing the vacant space at the Officer’s Mess site to be repurposed for 11-16 use. The scheme will deliver significant operational, timetabling, and safeguarding benefits for the school and its pupils by reducing the need for large numbers of pupils to move between the two sites. This is a great example of developing a clear master planning strategy to achieve long term benefits, rather than simply providing additional shorter term solutions.
The proposed primary school will be formed from a substantial new extension including a new entrance, reception, administrative areas, and 8 new classrooms. The remainder of the primary accommodation is provided by repurposing space within the original building with a new activity studio, dining space, learning resources area, SEN rooms, and year 5 and 6 classrooms.
The contemporary design has been developed to complement the existing building on site, whilst also providing a strong sense of identity for the primary school. The raised roof and entrance canopy, coloured cladding, and new paved plaza create a legible and vibrant entrance to the school.
The project will also be highly sustainable, following the LETI Climate Emergency Design Guide and standards, to deliver a building that will perform significantly beyond Building Regulations standards.
The technical design of the school will now begin with the aim to deliver and complete the new school for use in August 2027.
The project has been developed by the core team of SOLID Structures & Infrastructure, James Rand at Paul Basham Associates , CBG Consultants Ltd, SKP3 Ltd and Windrush Ecology.
