Building begins on site - July 2000

We were really excited to watch the builders arrive on site, almost two years to the day since the fire in July 1998. During the last week of term the contractor set up the cabins in a compound ready to begin the construction of our new school buildings.

There is alot of work to be done inside the existing building during the summer holidays. Four classrooms are to be refurbished and a new food servery built, so that things will be able to run even more efficiently at lunch times. The frontage to the school will be redesigned and a new drive in and out system created for visitors and staff coming to our school by car.

Four year 6 pupils helped to dig the first shovelful of earth - helped by Hartley of course.

Hartley told Dorin Construction that he is an expert at digging holes - as he has buried many bones in his time and that he would as happy as a dog with two tails to give them any help they needed over the coming months.

We know that it will take a quite a while to complete the new building. We hope that it will be finished sometime around April/May 2001. It will be really interesting to watch the school grow - there will be lots of opportunities to learn about building materials and construction.

Do come and look in on our news as we keep you informed about the progress on site - not to mention the day when we finally get to move into our new redesigned school

You can see from the model built by one of our architects that there is alot of work to do. The section with the grey roof to the right in the model is the existing building with the nursery, offices, staffroom, hall and classrooms which were not destroyed in the fire.

The rest of the model gives you an idea what the new classrooms, early years and family centre will look like. The large empty space in the centre will be landscaped as an outdoor classroom for the nursery and community use.

It is very different to the building we lost in the fire. The new design will be one storey only. As well as reinstating as a mainstream primary school we will be a resourced school with special facilities for pupils with physical or medical disability. There will be improved community facilities. Education, Health and Social Services will be working together to provide for pupils who attend the school.

Keep an eye on this page - we'll update with pictures on a regular basis - watch our new school grow!

Progress

Our Headteacher and Hartley, with what should have been our
Junior school in the background - if it were still there, the church and
shopping centre in the background would not be visible.

To the community that Grangs School serves, the most visible signs that things were moving on must have been the activity outside of the school.

In the background, we had already ordered new teaching resources, books, pens, pencils, new desks and chairs were already on order too, but they wouldn't arrive in time for the new school year. We were fortunate that the other schools in town rallied around and loaned us any desks or chairs that were available.

But we needed classrooms for that furniture and the children first! Temporary classrooms were ordered, which will accommodate the children until our new school is built. These classrooms would be sited on part of our playing fields.

The week before they arrived, the mains services like electricity, water, sewerage etc were laid down underground, you can see these service ditches behind our headteacher in the photo' above.

The day before they arrived, a crew of workmen arrived to prepare the site.

They laid down a metal 'carpet' for the crane to drive over, this would stop it sinking into the soil and protect our fields too.

The crane brought along large timber foundations which were laid out in just the right place, of course they had to be level too!

Then, next day, Owton Manor Lane was very busy indeed, there were four huge classrooms and other units were parked along the road until the crane was ready for them.

Then along it would come, pick them up and then trundle along with them high in the air, and very very carefully place them down in exactly the right place.

It was a precision task as the operator had to place the first classroom down on the foundations, then pick up a toilet/cloakroom unit and position that alongside the classroom so that they could be connected.

Then he had to place another classroom on the other side of the toilet/cloakroom unit and everything had to fit together.

Once this mammoth task had been completed, then the mains services could be connected, electricity, water, telephones, security alarms - what a complicated job!

There were four classrooms in all and two toilet/ cloakroom units and once they were in place we could see what we would be working with for the next year or so.