| Open evening at Hope Academy awes visitors
October 2010
With construction completion still some 10 months away, Hope Academy in Newton-le-Willows nevertheless drew gasps of awe at its first Open evening, as 500 excited visitors were given guided tours within the emerging development. |
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| Attended by prospective future pupils and their parents, the event – which included presentations by The Academy’s Principal John Gannon, as well as contractor Willmott Dixon – enabled many to appreciate for the first time the sheer scale and scope of the development.
At a build cost of £33 million, Hope Academy, which will replace both Newton Community High School & St Aelred’s Catholic Technology College, will provide one of the most innovative, high quality and well equipped learning environments in the country, including 12 outdoor interactive learning spaces, a kitchen garden, science garden, sustainability garden and attenuation pond, and a wireless internet system covering the whole site enabling fully accessible outdoor working.
“There are so many innovative features and outstanding facilities within Hope Academy’s design that the open evening was vital in order to help parents and pupils fully appreciate what we are creating” explains Principal, John Gannon. “It will truly be a unique and inspirational educational community in which the children’s development - intellectually, spiritually and socially – will be entirely catered for.”
Among the attendees was Tony Billows, whose son Lewis is a pupil at St. Catherine’s Primary School in Lowton. “We’re certainly impressed by what we’ve seen today”, he said. “It’s going to be a flagship school for the region and it’s not just the building and facilities that stand out, but the ethos that they’re going to operate. Lewis is certainly interested in coming here.”
Hope Academy is a joint Catholic and Church of England Academy, sponsored by the Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool, the Church of England Diocese of Liverpool and Liverpool Hope University, and will welcome children from all faiths and none.
Its building is one of the most sustainable and highly specified education buildings in the country. Wind turbines provide off-peak electricity, the heating and hot water is to be generated by renewable sources on site and 20% of the building and 70% of the external landscaping will be made from recycled materials.
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