Multi-Million Pound School Opens in Tiffield
| Published: 28th February 2008 16:53 |
A new Northamptonshire County Council multi-million pound special school has opened this week.
The Gateway School in Tiffield has officially opened this week (Thursday 28th) after spending over £6.4million on relocating from Raeburn School on Raeburn Road, Northampton, to a new state-of-the-art purpose built school at the St John’s Tiffield site.
The new school will provide students with more opportunities to enter into mainstream schools by offering a better quality of facilities including a new sports hall and computer room.
The new school will cater for around 50 full time pupils and 10 part time pupils with emotional, behavioural and social difficulties aged between 11 and 18-years-old.
Cabinet member for children and young people Councillor Joan Kirkbride said: "This is a very exciting day for Northamptonshire and for those young people who will in the future use this new facility.
"It has been a long time in the planning and is a testament to all the hard work by staff, teachers and pupils that work is beginning.
"There is scope for a lot of opportunities at the St John’s site in the future which I hope will enable pupils to have the best life chances possible."
Headteacher David Lloyd said: "This pioneering development represents a fantastic opportunity for the county and the children and families we support. The school will be the first of its kind in that it will offer a comprehensive and holistic approach to meeting the needs of some of Northamptonshire’s most challenging young people.
"It will serve as a centre where all the relevant agencies will contribute to helping our young people succeed and achieve. The state of the art building will also present our school with a genuine chance of improving its already good performance still further."
The name ‘The Gateway School’ was suggested by a pupil, Michael Russell, who saw the new school as a place where pupils can go and be offered an array of opportunities to turn their lives around; in other words, a gateway to success. A number of names were suggested and voted upon by staff, pupils and governors but this was the clear winner.
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