Wexham School students enjoy new facilities

The students of Wexham School have been enjoying their new classrooms and library facilities in a large new build addition to the school, since moving in earlier this month (Tuesday 6 November).

Headteacher Lawrence Smith and cabinet member for education and children, Councillor Shabnum Sadiq visited the school’s new teaching block (Thursday 8 November) to tour the facilities.

They were joined by the school’s students and teachers as well as representatives from Slough Borough Council Property Services and Morgan Sindall Construction.

The new teaching block has been named the Woodside Building and the new library, resource centre and sixth form named the Orchard Library. The school drew on its history when choosing the names of its new facilities as Wexham School was created when Woodside County Secondary School and The Orchard County Secondary School combined in the 1980s.

The work at Wexham School is part of the council’s ambitious school places programme – a multi-million pound investment in primary and secondary school buildings, extensions and new schools – to provide enough places for Slough’s current and future young people.

The Wexham School expansion includes the new 3,000 square metre three storey Woodside Building that houses 29 new classrooms for English, Special Educational Needs (SEN), Humanities and Languages, three of which have dedicated ICT facilities. The Woodside Building also provides staff workrooms, group rooms, a new student reception and welfare facilities, a new library and a sixth form study centre.

The existing library has been converted into two new science laboratories and external landscaped areas will be provided, along with a new staff car park, and improvements to the local highway to complete the site.

Lawrence Smith, headteacher at Wexham School, said: “We couldn’t be happier with our school’s new facilities. Feedback from students and teaching staff now using the Woodside Building has been extremely positive. Our new state-of-the-art teaching spaces will be instrumental in helping us build on this year’s ‘Good’ Ofsted report, which stated the school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding.”

Councillor Shabnum Sadiq, cabinet member for education and children, added: “The Woodside Building at Wexham School is a first-class teaching environment that is already benefiting both pupils and staff.

“Our borough is growing fast and we are working hard to meet the demand for additional school places through the council’s ambitious school places programme. We are committed to providing high quality learning environments and improved teaching spaces for both current and future students.”

“The outstanding learning environments we’ve built at Wexham School will serve to help our young people get the best start in life and we couldn’t be more pleased to see them in use.”

The Wexham School expansion project is being undertaken by Slough Urban Renewal (SUR), a partnership between Slough Borough Council and Morgan Sindall Investments Ltd which is driving regeneration across the town including in leisure, housing, community and school buildings.

Andy Howell, SUR general manager, said: “This is a major addition to the school and we are delighted to have been able to deliver this new space to create a 21st century learning environment. It has been a pleasure working with the school on the construction project and creating wider educational benefits such as the BTEC Level 1 course.”

Wexham School will host an official opening event celebrating its new facilities in the new year.