Northbrook Action Group (NAG)

The re-development of the school will offer the students greatly improved facilities and is a major investment in he future of young people. The planning for the new school at Taunton Road has come under close scrutiny from local residents who have a number of issues relating to the design of the new school and the use of Manor House Gardens. This leaflet is part of our engagement with the concerns raised by the MHGUG and NAG.

All the views and comments expressed at the Public Consultation meeting held on 5th June 2008 were recorded and carefully considered. Since then the design team has explored further improvements to the design to provide a design solution which would address the unresolved planning issues and lead to a satisfactory planning outcome.

MHGUG and NAG have other issues that were not about planning but about the impact on the area around the school, and the management of these issues.

Concerns have been expressed about the Multi Use Games Area (MUGA) in MHG and this has been discussed at a number of MHGUG meetings. Although progress has been made in shaping the proposals for usage of the Gardens, a formal agreement has yet to be reached. The expectation is that, should the school development receive planning consent, the Council will continue to explore with the school and MHGUG how to successfully balance the needs of park users, the school and local residents. In the past, the school has been afforded access to the MUGA via a gated entrance on the school wall to the west boundary. The school would wish to retain this pattern of access. This is for a number of reasons: it reduces the loss of curriculum time it would take to walk the pupils out of the front of the school and past Taunton Road; it minimises the impact it has to residents in Taunton Road; and is less of a Health and Safety issue for pupils.

The school has adopted a gated policy for break and lunch at its temporary site and the intention is to continue this policy, so students would not be using the Gardens and surrounding amenities at lunchtime. We would, however, like to use the MUGA for break (20 minutes) and lunch (50 minutes). This would be supervised by staff at all times and used only for organised games activities like five a side football. To support this proposal it has been agreed that the MUGA and the tennis courts (which would not be used at lunch or break) would be re-furbished and kept to a high standard. Full and clear signage would be displayed to show the times the school would be using these facilities.

A further concern was the lack of recreation areas on site and the feeling that this would have an impact on the usage of the Gardens. The expansion to a 600 school with 120 in each year group provides a more suitable size of school with a 21st century environment to meet the demands of delivering a broad curriculum. The buildings are required to be built to the current Department for Children, School and Families guidelines, resulting in an 80% larger floor area than the current buildings, with the consequent reduction in available area for hard play and games. However, the design has included an additional activity room and a large cafeteria, whereas the previous hall doubled as a canteen. Equipped with state of the art computer facilities, these areas can be used for breakfast, lunch and after school enrichment. This will reduce pressure on the use of the MUGA and also reduce the number of students that enter and leave the building en masse at the start and end of the day. In addition during the summer a number of PE sessions are held at other venues, for example Sutcliffe Park for athletics.

Another concern raised is the impact of the increased size of the school from 500 to 600 students on cars parking and drop-offs. We obviously cannot dictate to staff and pupils how they travel to and from work but do encourage a healthy lifestyle. Currently just over 20% of staff walk or cycle to school whilst more use public transport. As for students, we have approximately 15 parents that drop their sons or daughters off by car each day.

The school has continuously sought to provide better facilities for all its students within the current building, yet despite numerous refurbishments, extension and developments it is clear that the current building can no longer provide adequate space for its students and there are not enough classroom spaces to deliver the curriculum. The school has not rooms which can accommodate more than one class at a time and all classrooms are below recommended sizes for secondary education. Many of the spaces within the school have more than one use which at times causes issues of conflcit between various departments as all areas are looking for space to deliver a full curriculum offer. As a result, poor standards of accommodation have had detrimental effects on the curriculum offer, the delivery of the current curriculum and the ethos within the building.

We look to the design of our new school to provide a hugely improved quality of education for our young people. Northbrook has for many years been part of the neighbourhood. We want to work hard so that any outstanding issues can be resolved to ensure that the school continues to be an integral part of our local community.

For any further enquiries email: Admin@northbrook.lewisham.sch.uk

Published by Northbrook School in association with the London Borough of Lewisham.