This year sees Halliford School mark its Centenary, and at the centre of its celebrations is the construction of a new building on site. The school was delighted that Spelthorne Borough Council approved their ambitious plans for a new 805 sq. m teaching building.
The ethos of Halliford School is founded on being a smaller school where students are well known to the staff and one another and treated very much as individuals as part of their warm-hearted school community. Therefore, the governing body has been keen not to expand the school, but they have backed ambitious plans to provide their students with the best possible facilities on the school site over the last three years. This new building is the next bold step in this development and will create a vibrant new Learning Resource Centre on the ground floor, which will offer their students the very latest in collaborative working spaces and superb library facilities. Above this and over-looking the sports field will be six bright and spacious new classrooms and associated staff offices. The building will also house further wash-room facilities for the school.
The Headmaster was keen to avoid disruption to the local neighbours and therefore opted for a modular building which also has the advantage that the construction process is much shorter thanks to the expertise of our construction specialists, The Darwin Group. Work commenced in May, with the delivery of 27 pre-built modules, and the building is due to be opened as the school returns from the October half-term break.
It is a source of great pride that sees Halliford name the new building in honour of their Chair of Governors, Mr Ken Woodward. Ken has served as a Governor for over twenty years and has successfully led the school as Chairman for the last eight years. His son attended Halliford School, and Ken has always sought to give so much back to the school community and so it now seems entirely fitting to name this building in recognition of all he has done and continues to do to secure the future of Halliford School. It is especially significant for Ken as it is being built at the rear of the Sports Hall and will look over Ken’s treasured allotment site!
James Davies, Headmaster at Halliford School, said, “It is incredibly exciting for us to be able to celebrate our Centenary year this September as we hopefully all return to a more normal academic year ahead. The Woodward Building offers state-of-the-art modern facilities for our students and will provide exciting, stimulating spaces for them to work collaboratively with our new Learning Resource Centre at the heart of the school site. This September also sees the school move to a new Microsoft Surface Go 1:1 digital device strategy. The Learning Resource Centre will combine space to work both digitally and utilise our extensive library resources. We are looking forward to being able to move into our new Woodward Building at the October half-term just 21 weeks from when we started work on-site, which is quite remarkable! We very much look forward to welcoming members of the community to see the new development.”