St Lawrence SEND School

Our Midlands team have built a new special education needs and disabilities (SEND) school for Lincolnshire County Council. This is the fifth SEND school project we have worked on for the council, with all of the schools forming part of the council’s £100m investment to improve SEND support for local children and young people.

Extra precautions were taken to ensure minimal disruption for students and staff as the new school was built on a live site. This enabled the old building to remain operational during the works.

Facilities

The new school includes a huge range of facilities designed for accessibility and inclusivity.

Spaces include:

• A health hub offering physiotherapy
• Soft play and sensory areas
• A full education suite including science labs, design and technology, and art classrooms
• Essential life and social skills areas
• Hall spaces with changing and hygiene suites
• State-of-the-art profound and multiple learning disability (PMLD) suites
• Covered external play spaces
• 65 parking spaces, with accessible, enlarged and minibus spaces
• Capacity for 28 minibuses for a managed pick-up/drop-off system

Embedding sustainability

The new school took a fabric-first approach to deliver an improved U-value that surpasses the standard found in most schools. This approach will help to ensure the building is more energy efficient.

The building also incorporates other sustainable solutions such as air source heat pumps and electric vehicle charging points.

Future-proofing the school

As well as embedding some sustainable measures into the current build, we are also helping to future-proof the building.

With future Governmental targets requiring buildings to be net-zero by 2050, we have also incorporated the infrastructure for future upgrades to the building. Including these in the build will help to reduce the cost of future upgrades as well as making them quicker and easier, reducing the disruption to students and staff in the future.

The team scored 45 on their first Considerate Constructors Scheme visit

Giving back to the community

As this was a live site, engaging the students at the school was a key focus for our team. We set up a number of site tours for the students, as well as a specific viewing area where students could stand at a safe distance and observe the progress being made on their new school.

We also delivered site tours, work experience and careers guidance to other educational institutions in the area such as Boston College and a local grammar school.

Nick Heath, director of delivery in the Midlands at Willmott Dixon, said:

“We’re pleased to be strengthening our relationship with Lincolnshire County Council on creating this future-proofed SEND school.

“We take a consultative approach to projects, especially sustainable solutions. Initially, the council wanted to refurbish the existing school, but the work required to refurbish and extend it wouldn’t have been value-for-money in the long-term. We therefore recommended the creation of this new facility.

“The school’s sustainable measures will help to future-proof it against upcoming government targets, while also allowing the council to incorporate sustainable solutions in the future with minimised costs and disruption.”

Cllr Mrs Patricia Bradwell OBE, executive member for children’s services at Lincolnshire, said:

“One of the council's top priorities is ensuring all local children get a great start in life, and a good education is vital to that. That's why the authority is investing around £100m in improving and expanding special school across Lincolnshire.

“Despite the challenges we’ve faced over the last few years, we’ve continued to make steady progress, with a wide range of improvements already completed, most recently in Boston, Bourne, Louth and Spilsby. I’m delighted pupils in Horncastle will soon be able to benefit from this programme as well.

“The new school will offer much better facilities and will mean more pupils will be able to attend their local school, rather than having to travel large distances for their education – something that will be of great benefit to both the children and their families.”

Jonathan Parker, head of construction at Pagabo, said:

“It’s brilliant to see progress on this significant project for Lincolnshire County Council and to have Willmott Dixon doing what it does best on site. Not only is it a project that will make a difference to the lives of many in the region, it is a project that exemplifies all that’s great about industry collaboration and striving for high quality design standards fit for the future.”