School will be out forever in Yarmouth come January.
Pupils at Yarmouth Primary School are looking to make the move to Freshwater, on the site of the former All Saints Primary School.
New school building almost ready
The countdown is on until the new school building in Freshwater is ready, and it looks like pupils will be in their new school for the new year.
Building work on the £4.5 million fit-for-purpose school, on School Green Road, is nearly finished according to the council’s education lead, Cllr Debbie Andre.
Six to eight weeks ahead of schedule
Speaking at cabinet last week, Cllr Andre said the work is six to eight weeks ahead of schedule and it is planned to hand the building over on 9th December.
Over the Christmas holidays, the school will be moved so Yarmouth pupils will head to Freshwater for the start of the new January term.
She said,
“Our Island children deserve a fantastic environment to be taught in and that is what we are giving them with this new school.”
What’s new
New hard and soft play areas have been included; a library, technology suites and a special educational needs resource base as well as part of the new building using ragstone from the old building.
The plans for the new school — which will accommodate 210 pupils —were viewed as controversial because it meant the closure of All Saints’ Primary School with some pupils moving to Yarmouth.
The school closure was done to combat the number of surplus school places in the West Wight area.
Problems with former site
According to the council, the former All Saints’ site, which had been a school for more than 150 years, was poorly arranged and suffered from subsidence, structural cracking, dry rot and water ingress.
It was argued the school was not suitable for modern-day primary education.
Yarmouth Primary to move onto site
Once the new building was complete, Yarmouth Primary would then move into the site.
Permission was given for the building works two years ago with demolition work starting in the summer of last year.
The school and pupils moved out of All Saints and completed its final term in summer 2020. The Little Stars Pre-School next door remained in place.
In recent weeks, Yarmouth Town Council has announced its bid to save the former school building by applying to make it an asset of community value.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which News OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may have been made by OnTheWight. Ed
