King Alfred's Academy

Wantage, Oxfordshire

Client

Vale Academy Trust, Oxfordshire County Council

Location

Wantage, Oxfordshire

Value:

c£20 million
Awards

The masterplanning of the school site offered the opportunity to provide unity and identity across all buildings.

The challenge

King Alfred’s is the largest academy in Southern Oxfordshire, an Ofsted outstanding school with 1860 students. The academy was spread over three sites and wanted to consolidate the estate onto two sites to streamline its teaching practices and develop new modern teaching facilities.

Our approach

Our work included masterplanning the development, disposal of one site (sold for residential development) and the delivery of buildings across the two new campuses. This included new dining facilities, new teaching space, a new sports hall, new science facilities and the complete refurbishment of the existing teaching blocks including the sixth form centre.

“Roberts Limbrick have helped us to deliver a wonderful, inspiring, new campus and enhanced facilities across both sites that can only take teaching and learning at King Alfred’s to new heights.”

Jo Halliday, Headteacher, King Alfred’s School

The results

As with most schools with a long history, King Alfred’s had a mixture of disparate building types and architectural styles, so the school buildings lacked unity. It was therefore key to develop an overarching architectural language for the school which was strong and inspirational, yet respectful of its setting in a historic market town situated on the boundary of a conservation area. A mixture of natural, traditional materials sits alongside bold ‘signature’ materials to give the school a renewed sense of identity and unity across the site.