Highbury Grove has joined the growing number of secondary schools in Islington offering students and staff brand new buildings and facilities.
The school has been completely rebuilt with over £29m of investment as part of Islington’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project.
Alongside first class teaching facilities, the new Highbury Grove School offers specialist areas for business enterprise and ICT, performance and art, science, design technology and catering. The outside area will also be completely re-landscaped with a new running track, ball courts and informal spaces where pupils can socialise.
Highbury Grove has been designed to be highly sustainable and 20 per cent of its energy will be produced from on-site renewable sources. Rainwater harvesting will collect at least 50 per cent of rainfall on the roof which can be used for toilet flushing and irrigation in the school grounds. A wind turbine linked to a digital display in the school will also give students the opportunity to monitor energy production.
Leader of Islington Council, Cllr Terry Stacy, visited the new school building this week.
Cllr Stacy said:
"It doesn’t seem so long ago that I was visiting Highbury Grove when it was still a building site. It’s fantastic to be back here now and I have no doubt these excellent new facilities will help pupils to enjoy their learning and do their very best at school.
"Islington's schools are getting better all the time, giving the borough's young people the best possible start in life. By investing millions on improving our secondary schools we're giving them access to the first-class educational facilities they deserve."
Associate head of Highbury Grove Secondary School, Henry Jones, said:
"The new school building is fantastic! It's filled with natural light coming from the large windows throughout and the corridors are bright and spacious, which means they never feel crowded even with hundreds of students passing through them at break times.
"All the visitors to Highbury Grove have been incredibly impressed and staff are already noticing how well students are responding to their new surroundings. We’ve recently celebrated some fantastic GCSE results and with the new facilities available to students, I’m looking forward to seeing our attainment improve even further."
Building works at all of the phase one schools in Islington's BSF programme - Samuel Rhodes secondary department, Highbury Grove School, St Aloysius' College and Holloway - are now either complete or are due to be finished by Spring 2010.
The second phase of the BSF project is also underway, with planning approval for Islington Arts and Media School granted earlier this month and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Language College and New River College Pupil Referral Unit being considered at planning committee meetings this week.
Islington Council has established a Local Education Partnership (LEP) called Transform Islington to design, build and maintain all the secondary schools in the borough. Adrian Letty, General Manager of LEP, said:
"We are delighted with the hand over of Highbury Grove School and it gives us real pleasure to see the reaction from the staff and students to the new facilities.
"Over the course of the next five months we will be demolishing the old school and finishing the external works which will incorporate sports facilities, an amphitheatre and external dining areas to complete a truly fantastic new school."
Tim Byles, Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools, the Government agency responsible for delivering the Building Schools for the Future programme, said:
"Building Schools for the Future is all about giving young people a better and a brighter future. The investment in Islington’s schools – including Highbury Grove School – will not only give students and teachers safe, welcoming and inspiring places to learn, but will also be real assets to the local communities they serve.
"BSF is about much more than simply bricks and mortar, it is about improving the life chances of young people and making a positive difference to locally for all learners."
ENDS
Page Last Updated: 23 February 2010