Description

[From InspiredSpaces - A Carillion Company Website]

The new primary school in Harton will replace the existing Harton Juniors and Harton Infants and Nursery Schools on the site they currently share. This is to be developed as a 630 place new build primary school with a 52 FTE Nursery.

The Project

The overall design concept for Harton Primary is to create a single storey pavilion that sits comfortably into its surrounding along with creating strong links between the internal and external learning environments. The main entrance is immediately apparent when you enter the site via a new public plaza and it is also apparent how to access the community entrance and the Foundation Stage entrance.

Inspiredspaces have designed the teaching environments to avoid excessive circulation and this has been achieved by extending the circulation adjacent to the street so opportunities are available for more informal learning.

The key objectives of the landscape proposals are to; maximise the potential for teaching and learning within the school grounds, create a strong landscape structure to the site, increase site biodiversity and provide a comfortable and natural setting for the new school.

An arrival plaza fronts the main entrance with paving aligned to naturally lead visitors to the main entrance, community entrance or public play park. The tree and shrub planting will be simple and bold reinforcing the natural way finding directing everyone to the arrival space and the building orientation on the site. Simple hedge lines will screen and segregate the car park from the pedestrian arrival route.

The playgrounds have been designed to encourage open ended creative play and areas for learning are an integral part of the landscape masterplan.

Learning Opportunities

The building layout is designed around the street concept providing a central heart to school. This is reflected as a large double height space which has a direct link with the hall in which the entire school can congregate. Ensuring that these key aspects of the school are located adjacent to the main circulation space ensures that they can be accessed by everyone easily. The street will be flexible enough to provide multi-use, offering opportunity for informal learning environments and increased audience capacity for the main hall and overspill dining provision.

The dedicated Foundation, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 teaching and learning spaces are all able to easily access these central breakout spaces and this arrangement fosters cross age and curricular working.

Flexible dividing screens between the main hall and the activity studio and the main hall and the street allow greater flexibility and multi-functional use for a whole school dining experience and separately, school functions and events.

The Community

By creating an inclusive school environment the design will be accessible for users of the school building and the wider community alike. The design includes a separate community access located directly from the car park which leads to large flexible community room. The community room will be accessible after and during school hours and can be operated and locked down from other parts of the school to aid security and well being. A public play park (funded via South Tyneside Councils Play Builder programme) is proposed on the northern side of the building closely related to the Community Room and entrance plaza.

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Further information

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