EXCITING NEWS TO SHARE!
Dear Parish Councillors and Village Hall Trustees,
I am delighted to share with you the news that the Local Authority will be building our school a new classroom to enable us to become a more sustainable 7-class structure. This will allow us to have single year classes in our KS1 department enabling our pupils to benefit from a dedicated single year-group curriculum delivery. We have only just informed our school community who share our excitement about the new classroom but we felt it was vital that our extended community are also kept fully informed of these changes.
With the continued development of housing in the area and with the geography of our school being fairly central to a wide range of housing developments, the Local Authority is keen to future proof our school to accommodate the growing demand for pupil places. With several children on our waiting list for a September 2023 start, the Local Authority are very aware that our school is over-subscribed and have indicated that they are keen to build the new classroom to provide places for these additional KS1 children as soon as possible. This year alone, we have received 57 applications for the 20 Early Years places we are currently able to offer. A new classroom would enable us to provide 30 places.
We are keen to start the new academic year with a 7-class structure as this will also enable our Year 1 and Year 2 pupils to be taught in single year groups from the outset and initially, in small groups.
We are sure you are all aware that, with any major construction, there can be unforeseen delays that can result in a change to the planned building completion date. With this in mind, we will keep you as informed as we possibly can with any adaptations we may need to make if a delay to the opening of the new classroom will prevent us from accessing it from the beginning of the Autumn term. One such adaptation may require us to use our school hall as a classroom for a short period of time and thereby seek any available un-booked afternoon slots at the village hall to deliver our PE curriculum or have access to the village green on a more regular basis, when it is available. Optimism allows us to hope that this may not be necessary, but the reality of what can truly be achieved in a short space of time is what we feel we have to plan and prepare ourselves for.
We are in the very early stages of discussions with the Local Authority School Expansion Team but it is hoped that, over the next few weeks, we will have a better idea as to the possible time scale of the various stages of the development and final completion.
Although the new classroom will be built within the confines of our school grounds, we are very much aware that, during the building stage, there may be some disruption to traffic near the school gates and it is likely that our usual level of parking may be affected for a period of time until completion. It is hoped that much of the main building work will take place during the summer holidays when our school community will not be needing access
but we have no doubt that this may spill in to the beginning of our Autumn term as well as affect the end of this current term leading up the Summer holidays. With this in mind, we wish to apologise in advance for any inconvenience and disruption that will be caused during this temporary period of time.
Once completed, we would very much like to invite the Parish Councillors and Village Hall Trustees to visit our school for a full tour of the current and new buildings and join with us in celebrating this growing community that we all have a passion for. We thank you in anticipation of your patience and support during what will no doubt be, a challenging as well as exciting time for our village primary school and our community.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions you may have.
Kind regards
Rachel
Headteacher: Rachel Heffer
Perran-Ar-Worthal C P School, School Hill, Perranwell Station, Truro, Cornwall, TR3 7LA
Telephone: 01872 863004
e-mail: head@perran-ar-worthal.cornwall.sch.uk
