Foreign Secretary attends Morgan Sindall handover at Carleton High School
Morgan Sindall Construction’s Yorkshire business marked the official handover of Carleton High School with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by local MP and Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper.
Morgan Sindall was appointed by the Department for Education (DfE) to deliver the redevelopment of the school in Pontefract, Wakefield on behalf of Pontefract Academies Trust.
Funded by DfE’s School Rebuilding Programme, Morgan Sindall has delivered the part redevelopment of the school, including the erection of a new three storey teaching building and two external canopies. The existing sports hall has also been refurbished, with the reconfiguration of external sports provision and installation of a new multi-use games area (MUGA). Morgan Sindall has also undertaken the provision of photovoltaic panels and associated landscaping.
To celebrate the opening of the new building, the school hosted a handover ceremony. Attendees heard speeches from Pontefract Academies Trust’s CEO, Julian Appleyard OBE and Head Teacher Mrs Shaheen Shariff. There were also speeches from representatives of Morgan Sindalls’s Yorkshire team, with Graham Marchant, Business Development and Framework Manager and Sarah Muscas, Senior Social Value Manager, both sharing their thoughts on the project.
The official ribbon cutting was undertaken by Yvette Cooper, MP for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley and Foreign Secretary, who offered positive words of support to the new look school in her constituency.
Head Teacher at Carleton High School, Mrs Shaheen Shariff, said:
We feel incredibly fortunate as a school to have this new building. We are deeply grateful to the Department for Education for investing in our school, students, and the community, also to Morgan Sindall and their partners for bringing this vision to life.
This new chapter means so much to us as a school, it ignites even greater ambition within our students and inspires them to aim higher for the future.”
Ben Hall, Area Director for Morgan Sindall’s Yorkshire Business, said:
We are incredibly proud to have delivered this outstanding new facility for the DfE and Pontefract Academies Trust.
From the outset, our focus has been on creating a high-quality, sustainable learning environment that will serve students and the wider community for many years to come. Today’s handover marks the culmination of a real team effort, and we are delighted to see the school open its doors to its first cohort of pupils."
Julian Appleyeard OBE, CEO of Pontefract Academies Trust, said:
The new teaching block at Carleton High School is a proud statement to our community that they deserve this investment. It reflects our belief in giving our children and young people the chances in life they deserve. We’re proud of what this project represents for the future, and we’re truly grateful to our partners and everyone who joined us to celebrate its official opening.”
The new building provides modern facilities to support a high-quality education for current and future students. Students will have access to modern classrooms and science labs, creative technology spaces and high spec computing suites.
The project has seen the new building developed on the school’s existing tennis courts, minimising disruption for pupils and staff.
Throughout the build programme, Morgan Sindall deployed its Intelligent Solutions approach to bring together digital and platform design with modern construction methods and innovative carbon reduction tools to create inspiring new facilities for students.
Like all buildings in the School Rebuilding Programme, Carleton High School was built to DfE technical specification and standards and is Net Zero Carbon in Operation (NZCiO) making the school more resilient to the effects of climate change.
Air source heat pumps are being used in the school’s heating systems, while photovoltaic panels have been installed on canopies and the building’s roofs, including a biosolar green roof.
Reducing carbon during construction was also a priority for the contractor. Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) structural steel - structural steel produced using the electric arcs to melt recycled steel scrap to create new, high-quality steel - was deployed during the project via collaborations with Shipley Structures Limited and Barrett Steel.
Elsewhere, circa 140m³ concrete was saved due to changing approach from slab before steel to steel before slab. This meant a semi-suspended slab became a ground bearing slab, reducing the concrete required.
In total, the equivalent of 858 tonnes of carbon dioxide were saved during the build – enough to heat 317 UK homes annually.
During the course of construction, Morgan Sindall recruited five T-level placements, working with Castleford and Barnsley Colleges. In addition, a programme of career engagement activity was delivered including fortnightly site visits, work experience, mock interview practice, apprenticeship talks and a biodiversity volunteering project.
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For more information, please contact Tom Carlin – [email protected]