Meeting documents

Thus our current two sites are only smaller than this by 14.5%!

Compromise: Playgrounds would be significantly undersized.

· Difficulties in achieving the ideal of individual classrooms connecting to outside spaces, making full use of the internal and external environment (in line with current thinking and policies).

· Circulation difficulties resulting from the need for close supervision of movement of children up and down stairs.

· Difficulties in making the school fully accessible. Costly lifts could be included, but a lift is less good for full access by disabled users than a building on a single level.

· Health and safety: careful, time consuming, onerous but necessary management of movement of primary age children up and down stairs would be required, to ensure their health and safety. This would have impact on achievable teaching time (as experienced at the current Pultney Road site where moving between floors reduces each lesson by at least 5 minutes at either end - which adds up to significant loss of taught time over a week)

· The playing field on the allotments would provide a large green space, but this would be divorced form the main school facilities by the church building, making it only really suitable for organised P.E. It would not give any sense of green space to the rest of the school site which would have to be all building and hard surface to maximise playground size.

· The only other green space would be part of the current presbytery garden. The shading by trees and presence of a natural stream and pond, whilst an asset for nature study etc. make the area only suitable for closely supervised use. Again this area is divorced from the main school facilities by the church building limiting its contribution to the overall site area.

Compromise: Playgrounds could be at government minimum sizes, but would be hemmed in by buildings and the site boundary. The boundary with the Linear Park is high with mature trees planted up the bank, leading to a sense of being very closed in, potentially leading to the same issues stated above for undersize playgrounds.

· There would be a need to take Junior children off site to adequately play team games with the associated issues of loss of teaching time, health and safety issues of walking or expense of transport.

· The school would be unable to host inter-school sports matches (something the school currently manages by borrowing the recreation ground adjacent to the Pulteney Road site.

· An artificial grass surface is not suitable for netball, tennis or basketball - these sports would probably have to rely on cramped provision in association with the playgrounds. Other artificial surfaces that suite these sports are less suitable for football or tag-rugby.

· The Llewellyn Harker plan (Option 4) shows three first step netball courts (each about one third of a standard court) the current standard for junior netball is "high-fives" netball which is played on a standard netball court, thus in reality there would only be one netball court with this option.

· The Llewellyn Harker plan (Option 4) shows that a 60m running track could be squeezed in between the playground and the linear park boundary. This would be in part under trees, and to the north side of the trees so would be heavily shaded and unlikely to support grass that could take much wear or real use.

· The only other significant green space would be part of the current presbytery garden. The shading by trees and presence of a natural stream and pond, whilst an asset for nature study etc. would make it only be suitable for supervised use in the formal curriculum, so give only limited contribution to the overall site area.

· The school currently holds a Sport England Active Mark Gold for its level of curricular and extra curricular sports activities (a level quite unusual for a primary school) and of which we are very proud. This is in part only achievable on the current sites, through use of adjacent facilities at the Sport and Leisure Centre and recreation ground. It would be difficult if not impossible to achieve this same level of sport activity on another site so significantly below the Government recommended minimum and without such adjacent facilities.

· It has long been the governors plan to develop a masterplan for the new site involving the organisation "Learning Through Landscapes" to optimise the educational value of every corner of the site. This plan would then be put into effect over a number of years, as funds became available. Standard DfES site areas provide for breathing space and "spare" areas of land that can be used for such purposes. With little or no "spare" site area, the potential for achieving this goal would be severely constrained.

· Effective education of children is highly reliant upon quality of environment and sense of well being. Studies have shown that with lack of space and resultant crowding, some children can feel less at ease, and as a result learn less effectively. This may be especially significant for children with special needs. The school currently has strengths in catering for such children, but struggles due to existing inadequate facilities, that would be little better on such a constrained site.

· Formal Curriculum (formal class teaching) adequate grounds are a vital resource beyond the classroom that St John's intend to use to the full at a new site, but this would be severely limited on the St. Alphege site alone due to lack of any suitable space away from the buildings. DfES policy recognises the significance and benefits of such resources to the formal curriculum.

· Hidden Curriculum (messages and "life" lessons conveyed sub-consciously through the environment) the possibilities here would be severely restricted.

· Informal Curriculum (experiences offered through play and social interaction at break times etc) Again for this aspect to be fully effective, it relies heavily on quality and volume of external space, and again this would be compromised on the St. Alphege site alone.

· Lack of green space would result in a potentially over sanitised environment in areas that children could be allowed regular access to without high levels of supervision. A degree of independence and measured exposure to risk, mud and dirt are vital to both the full potential of a child's learning experiences and health.

· The constrained site would have significant effect on the range of options available for laying out the site and would almost certainly limit options for future flexibility. As educational needs and policy changes, would the site be able to adapt, or would the risk of needing to re-locate again in say 20 years time, be increased?

· The school buildings could go on the business centre site

· Adequate, separate infants and junior playgrounds could be provided, visible from and close to the school buildings, but with adequate breathing space and informal play areas.

· A playing field could be located on the Allotments, keeping this as green space benefiting the local visual amenity and with potential for use by the wider community.

· Availability of green space elsewhere on the site, visible from school buildings would mean that the playing field would only need to be used for team sport, reducing the need for supervision and reducing child protection risks associated with less formal use of this relatively remote space.

· The schools current levels of sport activity could be maintained and even enhanced, with greater potential for matches with other local schools without reliance on off site facilities.

· All areas of the site would be made full use of, through the proposed `Learning Through Landscapes' project in the formal, informal and hidden curriculum.

· The effective loss of useable land through the separating nature of the church building would be reduced.

· There would be adequate breathing space to ensure a quality environment within the school site and visual amenity for the surrounding area.

· Over development of this otherwise tight-grain urban area would be avoided.

· An opportunity would arise to replace ugly industrial buildings with a good quality, single storey building more suited to the residential nature of the area.

· Industrial / business traffic (including heavy lorries) that currently access the business centre would be removed from a quiet residential area.

· St John's would be retained within the tight urban area of the city. (Many other urban schools in the authority are closing or being re-located).

· St Johns would be located at the heart of the area where most of its pupils currently live.