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SEN Centre of Excellence at St Ann’s
An aspiration became reality for Merton Council, with the construction of a new state-of-the-art secondary school to provide a first class education to pupils with profound learning difficulties and physical and sensory disabilities.
The new St Ann’s school, completed in April 2011, will ensure Merton is able to provide the best specialist educational resources, for pupils not only within the London Borough of Merton but also in boroughs throughout South West London.
The school has been built on under-used playing fields with the agreement of Sport England. Both outdoor and indoor environments have been treated as equally important in the design and delivery of the curriculum at the school.
The new school site incorporates a football pitch, multi-use games area, trim trail play area, horticulture area, a sensory garden and a variety of stimulating and calming spaces. The building has a gross internal floor area of 3,301m2 for a construction cost of £9 million. Comprising of one two storey block alongside three single storey blocks, easy access to and from the second storey is key to the design, with wheelchair-accessible routes within and linking the blocks. Inside there is space for a production kitchen, rooms for occupational and hydro-therapy, a dance studio, music room, ICT suite, library, soft play area, sensory room, food tech classroom and gardens, nursing, administration, catering and supervisory staff and a premises manager.
A significant reduction of 35% in CO2 emissions (50 tonnes) is set to be a achieved through the school’s central on-site biomass boiler, which is fuelled by wood pellets. It is a cost effective way of slashing carbon dioxide emissions, whilst providing the building with heat and hot water. The combustion process is carbon neutral, as the CO2 released when burning this matter is equivalent to the CO2 the trees absorbed in their lifetime. The CO2 reduction will amount to well over the Mayor of London’s recommended 20%.
The building’s architecture minimises the surface area exposed to the elements, helping to cut heat loss through the walls. Shallow plan spaces allow for natural ventilation and daylight, reducing the need for fans and artificial lighting. Natural ventilation and daylighting was a priority, given that grid supplied electricity is responsible for over twice the CO2 emissions as gas fired heating. The majority of classrooms are cross ventilated from windows on the external façade, to clerestory windows above the corridors.
This project is an exemplar for planning and design, and its success can be attributed to the effective partnership between Merton Council and community agencies, the design team and contractor, working under a PPC 2000 Partnering Contract.
Synergy are very proud of our involvement as quantity surveyors and employers’ agents on this project, the result of which is a school at the heart of the community, that offers a stimulating and inspiring learning experience for young people with special educational needs across South West London.
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