Pupils share their school hopes (From Northwich Guardian)
Send us news, start your message Cheshire News and your send photos and videos to 80360
Pupils share their school hopes
10:10am Friday 1st February 2013 in News
By Gina Bebbington
The team of researchers from Hartford Manor Community Primary School.
AN ELOQUENT team of primary school pupils are speaking out publically to explain why their school needs work.
The six-strong group of Hartford Manor Community Primary School children have spent six weeks researching the state of their school building, interviewing fellow pupils and staff and asking the school community to fill in a questionnaire.
They spoke to a meeting of villagers at St John’s Church Hall, in School Lane, on Wednesday, January 23, and will be speaking to Cheshire West and Chester Council’s director of education in February.
Headteacher Simon Kidwell said: “It’s not a bad place to send your children, and they’re fantastic advocates for the school, but the building is in desparate need of repair.
“We have a vision for the school – we want it to be the best school in Northwich, but we need a strategy to make the building really good.
“The first thing we did, which is unique for the school, was to ask the children what they want.
“A lot of plans get forced on you from the local authorities and we don’t want that – we want to ask the children first what they want from their school.”
The team of Year Six pupils included Seth Schroeder, Charlotte Barrass, Olivia Moynihan, Ben Scott, Amber Sperring-Toy and Rachel Hatton.
They explained that their current building includes noisy open plan classrooms with drafty windows, two cramped and aging mobile classrooms, a noisy heating system and a lack of natural light.
They said they want doors on each classroom and quieter shared working areas to reduce distractions to learning, as well as more environmentally friendly double-glazed windows and heating.
Bill Briggs, from Sandiway Energy Consultants, has carried out a feasibility study into the project and its likely cost.
Plans have been drawn up for a £1.5 million remodelling of the school, changing its entrance and creating safer access, demolishing the mobile classrooms and building a block of six new classrooms linked to the main building with a glass corridor and refurbishing the main building.
