Construction completes at Bloxham Grove Academy

— DATE
15^TH December 2023

— CATEGORY
News

We celebrated the handover of the new Bloxham Grove Academy this week.

ADP designed the new SEN school for students aged 7–18 years old with a complex range of special educational needs and disabilities. These include primary needs of Autistic Spectrum Condition, Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs, and Cognition and Learning difficulties.

We worked with The Gallery Trust to help bring their successful vision and ethos of restorative teaching and learning into the school facilities. The layouts of the classrooms and breakout spaces are designed from an understanding of a transitional strategy used by the School. Pupils that have left a class are re-integrated via a process of moving through a series of calming spaces. The Trust’s approach is further supported through the design of spaces for therapy dogs that pupils can interact with and care for.

In addition to general and specialist teaching spaces, the School also provides vocational teaching spaces where life skills are taught in a mock-up flat and construction building.

The school has been delivered by Galliford Try and will open its doors to pupils and staff in January 2024.

Written by:

Schools Sector Director
Claire Mantle

- Role
Schools Sector Director

- Studio
Birmingham

Claire Mantle

As ADP’s school sector lead, Claire leads the practice’s school strategy. She shares lessons learned, best practice and specialist knowledge across our studios and the sector more widely.

Claire believes that the only way to create responsive, inspiring learning environments is to put pupils at the centre of the design process, consulting closely with user working groups to understand staff requirements.

This year, she has been working to incorporate ‘design for wellbeing’ into all of our school briefs and designs, using an evidence-based approach. She is also leading post occupancy evaluations of our schools to appraise their performance and gain feedback from pupils and staff.

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