Opening of Spring High

30 October 2019

At Springfield we have been working closely with Cheshire East Council to support the planning of additional places for pupils with Special Educational Needs within our locality.

Springfield School is a school for pupils with profound, severe and moderate learning disabilities alongside pupils with Autism. In February 2019 we received our fourth consecutive Outstanding Ofsted.

The growing demand for places for pupils with cognitive disabilities and autism has been increasing over a number of years.

Over the last two years we have worked on a joint funded project with Cheshire East to create a new build comprising of 5 purpose-built classrooms and an additional dining room. This has enabled us to grow from 130 pupil places in 2016 to 172 places from September 2019. Creating 42 new places over the last three years has ensured pupils are receiving the right level of education and not travelling long distances to out of borough places.

The new building is specifically for pupils aged 11-18 with a range of additional needs. This has allowed our main building to accommodate two further classes for primary aged children. The school council has been working hard on designing a new school uniform. The pupils expressed they wanted a new school uniform that was different from the primary aged children and made them look in their words, ‘grown up’.

Friday 13 September was the official opening of the new building. Pupils gathered outside alongside Jacky Forster (Director of Education), Councillor Ben Minshall (Mayor of Crewe), School Governors and Councillor Dorothy Flude (Cheshire East Council cabinet member responsible for children and families) who opened and named the building ‘Spring High’. Pupils shared their thoughts on the new building:

• ‘It’s the greatest building in the UK’
• ‘There are lovely bright classrooms which have lots of room for all of our friends’
• ‘The building makes us feel grown up’

The opening ended with Springfield Choir making a star appearance. Guests were invited to enjoy afternoon tea in our new dining hall prepared by our Sixth Form pupils.