Cumbria County Council is holding an official opening event on Tuesday 8 October 2019 for the new state-of-the-art Sandside Lodge School in Ulverston. The event will take place between 10am and 12.15pm at the school.
As part of this opening event, Cumbria County Council’s Chairman Cllr Christine Bowditch, together with pupils from Sandside Lodge, will be cutting a ribbon and declaring the school officially open. Cumbria County Council’s Leader Cllr Stewart Young and Cllr Sue Sanderson, Cabinet Member for Schools and Learning, will also be joining in the celebrations, alongside local councillors.
Cumbria County Council has invested £8.6 million in this fantastic project which provides a purpose-built, 80-place special school next to Ulverston Victoria High School.
This new school, which is one element of Cumbria’s ambitious and wide-ranging Inclusion Strategy, provides modern teaching facilities for children aged between two and 19 with severe learning difficulties.
As well as state-of-the-art teaching spaces, the new school has a wide range of facilities including:
Cllr Sue Sanderson, Cumbria County Council Cabinet Member for Schools and Learning, said: “Now everyone is settled in this fabulous new school, it’s great that we can mark the occasion with an official opening celebration.
“Cumbria County Council has invested £8.6m in a brand new school building providing spacious, purpose-built learning facilities which will serve the community well for many years to come.”
Cllr Sanderson, who is also Chair of the Governors at Sandside Lodge School, added: “The new school building provides state-of-the-art facilities for special needs learning and is already making a world of difference for both the children and staff. The contrast could hardly be greater with the old school site which didn’t meet modern day standards for access and learning.”
Donna Stretton, Headteacher at Sandside Lodge School, said: “The new Sandside Lodge School building offers a huge range of additional experiences and opportunities for our students. We now have the space to be creative and provide an even more personalised approach to learning. The specialised rooms such as Aquatic Therapy, Rebound Therapy, Sensory Movement and Regulation, Experience Room and Thrive Play allow the staff to support students with all aspects of their development, including physical, sensory and emotional, in a more accessible way. The students have waited a long time for this building but it’s been well worth the wait.”
Seddon was the main contractor for the new-build and construction work started on site in June 2018.
Ed Wootton, regional director at Seddon, said: “It’s been a privilege to bring the excellent facilities at Sandside Lodge to life, creating a fantastic space for the community’s young people who have complex educational needs to learn and grow. Throughout the project we worked closely with all partners to ensure that the school would be ready for this academic year. Everyone’s hard work has paid off and it’s great to see the pupils enjoying the new school.”