Brand new single campus for King David Schools

Manchester City Council is preparing to consult on new proposals to create a single campus to replace the existing King David schools.

The latest proposals, if approved by the Executive on Wednesday, 24 October 2007, would create a single £20 million state of the art campus in North Manchester incorporating nursery provision, a new all through primary school formed out of an amalgamation of the current separate infant and junior schools, and an 11-18 high school.

The campus would be built on the site of the existing high school, replacing earlier feasibility plans that had looked at refurbishing the High School buildings which would have meant relocating the new infant and junior school to the site of the former Parkside Primary School on the Sheepfoot Lane frontage of Heaton Park. The Chief Executive will report to Council members that the building condition survey on the High School shows that the fabric is too poor to make refurbishment a good value-for-money option and the school will need to be rebuilt . A brand new , 5 storey High School would then leave enough space for the new primary school to be on the same site.

Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, said: "We are fully committed to bringing all our schools including the King David schools up to modern standards and have been looking at the feasibility of a number of different options over the last few months.

"We think that this latest proposal would be the best way forward - bringing together as it does each of the schools to create one single campus - a campus that would incorporate first class state of the art teaching facilities in a learning environment that would be a centre of excellence for all pupils from nursery age through to age 18.

"Bringing the schools together on one campus makes excellent sense both in educational terms where the advantages of being able to share facilities and resources will benefit teachers and pupils, and also in economic terms - in that the costs of providing a single state of the art campus would be about £3 million less than the costs associated with building two separate schools."

Funding for the new campus would be through Building Schools for the Future for the high school element and through the Government's Primary Capital Programme for the primary school and nursery provision.

Media contact:

Jane Lemon, tel: 0161 234 3179