Village families who currently have children attending James Peacock Infant & Nursery School and St Peter’s Junior School are welcoming this week’s announcement that Ruddington’s historically preferred Secondary School will be made over a third larger.
Since the building of thousands of new homes began in its catchment area, some residents here have been struggling to get places for their kids at Rushcliffe School in West Bridgford (now rebranded Rushcliffe Spencer Academy). In fact, in recent years, a good number of Ruddington pupils have been split up from lifelong friends to be accommodated at South Wolds Academy in Keyworth instead – which is double the distance from Ruddington and has even meant two separate school runs for some village mums and dads.
Now Nottinghamshire County Council has finally given the green light to the long mooted major expansion of Rushcliffe Spencer Academy which, it says, will see an additional 560 secondary school places created and provide the local community with a new, improved sports facility. The top consultation image from 2022 (courtesy of Church Lukas) shows us how the expanded site should look.
The additional £27million to deliver these works is to be covered by the Council’s ‘basic need allocation budget’ and ‘Section 106’ contributions from the numerous housing developers in Ruddington and the surrounding areas.
Councillor Keith Girling, Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Strategic Asset Management, says: “Building and expanding schools is one of the key ambitions of this council. There is no better investment than securing children get a good education. This is an investment in our children’s future. The next few years will be an exciting time for school developments, with expansions and improvements planned across the county, and it is a development that I’m fully behind. The approval for expansion of Rushcliffe Spencer Academy addresses the growing demand we’re seeing for secondary school places in Rushcliffe.”
The expansion will comprise a standalone new teaching block with dining facilities and sports hall and associated changing facilities, remodelling works to existing buildings, improvements to the external area such as school access, car parking and grass roots pitch areas. The plans have caused some controversy locally – due to the loss of green space, the demolition of the existing Rushcliffe Leisure Centre and the remodelling of the the Notts Gymnastics Academy building which are also included in the works.
Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillor Tracey Taylor, says: “It’s fantastic news the expansion has been approved. The project will deliver an additional 450 secondary places and 110 sixth form places, increasing the school’s current capacity by over a third. I’m sure this is very welcome news for residents in Ruddington, and I look forward to the project getting underway soon.”
Damian Painton, Principal at Rushcliffe Spencer Academy, agrees: “Getting to this stage has taken years of work by a great many people” he says. “I’m delighted that council members’ decision will enable more local children to come to our school and will ensure that pupils at Rushcliffe continue to have access to World Class facilities in support of their education.”
Ruddington parent Phil Roberts comments: “Some welcome news, but why didn’t the council deal with this a few years ago? Failure to act to an obvious problem (too many new homes) resulted in children like my daughter being split from her friends based purely on where the crow flies. I am not going to congratulate the council as I feel children going to their local feeder school should be an expectation and not a hope!”
St Peter’s Junior School headteacher Michael Bradley says: “The expansion of Rushcliffe Spencer Academy is great news for the families of St Peter’s pupils in Ruddington. We welcome the funding decision by the council and, although we know the works will take a while to complete, it does give plenty of cause for optimism. As ever, St Peter’s and Rushcliffe will remain committed to our long standing partnership.”
Nottinghamshire County Council expects more than 50 new jobs will be created for local people at the expanded Academy, in both teaching and support roles, to meet the needs of the growing school population. Cllr Girling adds: “Nottinghamshire has a strong workforce so it’s great the project will create jobs and opportunities to aid the local economy. The new sports provision will be open to local community groups and clubs and will cement the schools place at the heart of the community.”
No specific timescale for completion of the expansion project has yet been revealed. However, it seems unlikely that the work will be finished in time to be of benefit to current final year pupils at St Peter’s. We’ll keep you posted at RUDDINGTON.info!
