Relocating Farley Hill Primary School addresses deficiencies in the current Farley Hill accommodation and will reduce traffic congestion caused at the start and end of the school day.
Cllr Graham Howe, the Conservative executive member for children’s services, said: “It’s a great pleasure for us to hand over the keys to this fantastic new facility to Farley Hill Primary School. I’m sure the hundreds of students who will be starting the new school year there over the next few weeks will be delighted with what it has to offer and will only continue to benefit hundreds more in the years ahead.”
Keys for the new Farley Hill Primary School site in Arborfield have been handed over to its headteacher. Emma Clarke and her team are gearing up to open the new school site in September, after construction was completed on the new school earlier this summer.
All the modules for the buildings are now in place and are fitted out ready for staff and students ahead of pupils arriving soon.
Hundreds of young people will be able to make the most of the new facilities, with space to expand for more than 600 pupils as and when it is needed.
The inclusive buildings contain generous classrooms, specialist areas for design and food technology, PE and dance, and provides the latest digital teaching tools such as interactive teaching screens and sound systems.
Emma Clarke, headteacher at Farley Hill Primary School, said: “We are delighted with our new school building and the excellent facilities. Farley Hill school will continue to provide an excellent education and help the children to develop academically and as people. We look forward to being part of the Arborfield Green community.”
The school was built by modular construction specialists Reds10. The modules were built at the company’s factory in Yorkshire before being transported to site and lifted into place. This has been completed is stages throughout the project.
Seventy per cent of the building work for the new site has been completed away from the site itself, a decision made to cut carbon emissions in the construction process. This helps the council towards its goal of making Wokingham a carbon neutral borough by 2030.
“We are delighted to be working with Wokingham Borough Council again, this time on the new Farley Hill Primary School building. We look forward to seeing the state-of-the-art school and sports pitch being used by the local community,” said Michael Ruddick, director at Reds10.
The school is part of the Arborfield Garrison major development and is one of two primary schools being built in the area, with the second coming as part of a later construction phase.
This follows the construction of Bohunt secondary school in Arborfield, which opened in September 2016.
Arborfield Green’s new school facilities are funded through developer contributions as part of the four major new communities at Arborfield and Shinfield, as well as North and South Wokingham, and includes an investment of £98million in new schools.
The site includes community facilities such as an 3G sports pitch for use outside school hours. This will be run by the council’s sports and leisure team.
The updated leisure facilities are part of £1billion of infrastructure coming to the borough including new roads, housing, leisure facilities and more.
Cllr Parry Batth, executive member for environment and leisure, said: “We continue to invest in leisure facilities in our borough, across the area. Not only are we providing large-scale leisure centres to cater for a range of fitness needs but also local facilities in and around our communities for local people to make the most of at places close to their homes.
The new school will be formally opened later this year by the Wokingham Borough Mayor Cllr Keith Baker.
