Addington School

Project Details

• Reds10 are the Design and Build Contractor delivering a turnkey modular solution including sports pitches, car parking, groundworks and landscaping
• 1,000m2 single-storey steel framed volumetric SEND school building to include specialist teaching spaces for PMLD, Hygiene Rooms, Food Tech, Life Skills, Four classrooms, a Café and Breakout areas
• Increasing school capacity by 50 students, the new building will be predominantly for the use of Sixth Form pupils
• Enhanced carbon reduction feature  to help Wokingham Borough Council towards its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030

A development by Wokingham Borough Council to expand Addington School, a SEN school for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities was completed in the summer of 2020.

The 1000 sq m expansion of the Ofsted-rated outstanding school, designed by HLM Architects, includes a single storey steel framed volumetric teaching block with three further education classrooms, an enhanced classroom for Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities, a common area and dining hall extension.

The design approach will boost the school’s capacity to more than 260, allowing more local children with special educational needs and disabilities to be educated closer to home, It will also enhance the school’s educational and external space provision for its 16 to 19-year-old pupils.

Reds10 have pushed the boundaries of off-site construction, proving that modular buildings don’t need to be uniform and have created an amazing educational space for the borough. 70 per cent of the work was constructed offsite to reduce disruption to the school and its pupils. This has significantly reduced the overall programme for delivery and allowed for the inclusion of enhanced carbon reduction features, helping Wokingham Borough Council meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Sustainability has been achieved without compromising on the comfort of the building. Electric heat pumps provide a majority of the building’s heating requirements, with high efficiencies and no related emissions. The heat pumps also provide cooling in the summer, although the majority of cooling is provided through local hybrid natural ventilation mixing boxes located within each classroom. Natural ventilation wind turrets provide ventilation to central areas maintaining CO2 levels and temperatures at appropriate levels. Offsite construction of the insulated and air tight building, will reduce the project’s carbon footprint. Finally, PV’s are currently being considered for the roof of the building to generate onsite renewable power which can be used on site, or exported to the grid when not being used.