The new school is sited on the existing Blurton school campus and will be co-located with the new Sir Stanley Matthews Academy. The philosophy for the co-located site is to have two clearly defined areas for the two schools, each with their own distinct identity, tying the whole site together with a unifying landscape solution and a shared palette of materials.
The £11.5M SEN school is due for completion May 2013 and will present a strong public frontage giving a clear and unique identity to the school with a strong dividing line between the public and private facilities. The public side of the building, with good visual links to the new academy helps to minimise the barriers to understanding and tolerance of difference and disability. This block houses the admin facilities as well as sports and dining facilities and specialist teaching areas such as sensory and soft play rooms.
The private side of the building is located securely behind this main admin block in two separate, well protected, teaching wings to accommodate all the day-to-day teaching spaces. The light and airy classrooms have been designed to offer maximum flexibility with pairs of classrooms are arranged around en-suite hygiene facilities with a dedicated quiet room for 1 to 1 teaching.