The King John School – Sixth Form Centre

The King John School performs at the very highest levels, having achieved ‘outstanding’ status across all aspects of their recent Ofsted report in September 2013.

As such, and in line with the “Raising the Participation Age” (RPA) set out by the Department for Education, the Academy is expecting to double the Sixth Form intake to around 500 students over the next two years.

To facilitate this growth, the Sixth Form facilities needed doubling in size, along with the associated infrastructure. Prior to the works, a new car park was created as part of the enabling works. The main core of works are focusing on the provision of a new, larger common room including cafeteria facilities, a new IT study suite as well as new teaching spaces.

The whole design is an addition to the existing sixth form centre, all of which benefits from increased flexibility through the opening up of areas with partitioning throughout in order to enable simple moves and changes to meet ever-changing teaching needs.

The scheme represents a significant planning success for the school, with it being located within a green belt area. However the continued success of the school allowed the planning committee sufficient reason to overturn an initially blocked application at appeal.

Due to the poor weather conditions over the winter of 2013/4, significant challenges arose with maintaining the progress of the works. The worst of the winter’s rain hit as new footings were being dug and the new car park was being built. However, with the diligent work of main contractor; TJ Evers, the programme was caught up, with completion on target to the delight of the school.