Creative and Media Academies will take centre stage with north Manchester community

North Manchester residents will soon have access to state of the art recording facilities, a theatre and dance studio on their doorsteps, when two new multi million pound academies open in 2012.

Manchester Creative and Media Academies are currently housed on the sites of the former North Manchester High School for Girls (Moston) and North Manchester High School for Boys (Blackley).

But a planning application has been submitted this month and work is due to start in January next year to build two brand new 750 place single sex academies with capacity for 120 post 16 students.

The four storey, £38m campus in Blackley will be home to a host of innovative and state of the art facilities, not only for students, but for the community as a whole.

Amenities available to local people will include a recording studio, theatre, music and drama rooms, a dance studio, an ICT and media suite, meeting rooms, catering facilities, a learning resource centre and café.

Barry Fishwick, Executive Principal for Manchester Creative and Media Academies, says: "Good schools are a huge boost to a community providing 21st century learning environments for our children and great facilities for the wider community. We want the new academies to be welcoming, accessible and offering amenities that are relevant, not only to students, but to the community as a whole."

The two Creative and Media academies will be built on a site in Blackley bounded by the existing boys' academy location to the south and Victoria Avenue East to the north. They will operate as separate schools within one 13,700 sq m building forming an academies campus. However pupils will dine together and share the use of specialist classrooms.

The academies site will also have a green roof and allotment area accessible to pupils, a courtyard with a performance area and external teaching and dining areas.

Environmentally friendly aspects of the building will include a heating and cooling system that will be provided by renewable technologies and rainwater harvesting.

Councillor Sheila Newman, Manchester City Council Executive Member for Children's Service's, says: "The new academy building will be designed not just for the students, but the local community as well. We believe that all our schools should be at the heart of their community giving lifelong learning and leisure opportunities to everyone."

The lead sponsor for the two academies is The Manchester College with co-sponsors Manchester City Council and Microsoft.

Peter Tavernor, principal of lead sponsor The Manchester College and chair of the MC&MA Trust Board says: "The academies are going from strength to strength, and the new building development will only help to further position them at the heart of the community, with superb facilities that will both reflect and support their specialism of creative and media. We  are delighted by this excellent news."

The academies are part of a combined Building Schools for the Future and Academies programme with a £500m capital investment to rebuild or refurbish 33 schools, seven of which will be specialist academies (five academies opened across the city this September).

It is the largest investment in secondary education both the city and the north of England have ever seen.