£4million works to renovate four schools in North Northamptonshire and increase SEND provision approved

North Northants Council (NNC) has green-lit a massive £4.7m funding pot from the Department for Education (DfE) at an executive meeting on Thursday (April 17).

The funds have been allocated to specific schools in Rushden, Kettering and Oundle to help with pupil demand.

Alfred Lord Tennyson School in Rushden will receive £925,000 and Latimer Arts College in Kettering will be given £561,000 to complete renovations and meet increased pupil demand.

NNC has said there is a need for more secondary school capacity in Kettering.

Latimer Arts School has been chosen to deliver an extra 49 places across Years 7, 8 and 9.

Some capital works are needed to increase the size of dining areas and other spaces to accommodate more students in the next academic year.

From September 2023, Rushden’s Tennyson Road Infants and Alfred Street Junior amalgamated as a single school, with the intention to move all pupils onto one site from September 2025. Since the project started, costs have increased and the total spend will be £1.6million.

The funding will go towards renovation works, including removing asbestos, minimising the disruption to pupils currently at the school and ensuring the combined site is ready for the transfer of students in the 2025/26 school year.

Reviews carried out by NNC have also indicated that additional capacity for students with special educational needs (SEND) is needed ‘urgently’.

The authority has grasped the opportunity to use the leftover space from the Tennyson Road Infant School transfer to renovate the grounds and provide an additional 28 SEND places.

Rowan Gate Special School currently occupies half of the site but will be allocated £626,000 to renovate and take over the whole facility for Infant-aged pupils who require specialist provision.

Rowan Gate says it needs the extra space to meet its pupil demands from September 2025.

Work is expected to start over the summer holiday when the building is empty and be ready from the October half-term.

Prince William School in Oundle has received the biggest boost of cash at £2.59million to create new provision for pupils with additional needs.

The secondary school has been picked as the first in a tranche of schools to undergo renovations to provide alternative provision places.

NNC says the money will be used to renovate two blocks on the school grounds, which will provide a standalone provision for 48 pupils with additional needs, opening at the start of the 2025/26 academic year with a reduced cohort.

NNC says it expects to save £810,000 in the first year of operation from the expansion project, due to the reduced cost of in-house specialist provision.

By 2027/28, when the 48 places are all filled, it expects to save £2.59million.

Cllr Scott Edwards, executive member for children, families and education on NNC, told members at the meeting: “These children, for whatever reason, cannot attend mainstream school or a special school and it’s a vital resource for those to be able to get that education and for us to be able to work with those children.

“The most exciting thing about this is it’s a blueprint, so this is going to be the first of four across the region. It’s vital that we get this right, it’s vital that we approve this today.

“We are working with our most vulnerable children within this, those children who are deserving of an education and those children who need to have the best start in life as well.”

He added that expressions of interest requests would be going out to other schools to create more SEND places in the coming years in primary, secondary and early years education.

NNC says it will update members in the autumn on the progress of the schemes.