Closed Buildings Update - September '24

As we have previously communicated, in August of this year, we signed a contract with a Principal Contractor, Stepnell who will be refurbishing the closed buildings.  The buildings will have a set of new science labs, new food technology facilities and classrooms with modern teaching wall technology.  This is a DfE funded project and we are very grateful to have a significant amount of investment into the school to support our re-opening.  Stepnell are attending opening evening tonight and will be placed in G28 where they can share with staff/parents some of the designs for the refurbishment of the school.

We have been reluctant to communicate a re-opening date due to the complex nature of building projects; when the remediation works first started, nobody anticipated that the works would last longer than 6-12 months, let alone extend into a second academic year.  Fortunately, the DfE have provided us with 22 temporary classrooms to support us through this period and we have forged relationships with other local schools who are helping us to deliver the curriculum in providing spaces for our students to use their food technology and science facilities.  These arrangements will remain in place until our buildings are fully restored and safe for us to return. 

The contract with Stepnell extends until September 2025 when we are working towards the whole school back in full operation.  Stepnell know that the project is time critical and will do everything they can to deliver the works within this timeframe. The priority for re-opening the school has always been to ensure the safety of students and staff. Projects of this nature are complex, and inevitably there are likely to be further challenges to overcome: we will continue to work tirelessly towards our goal of seeing our school community returned into the full site operations. We remain extremely grateful to Aylesford School Teaching & Support staff that have worked tirelessly throughout this time to ensure that learning can continue take place for students with as little disruption as possible.

We are all excited to see the refurbishment of our closed buildings and as the project progresses we will keep parents up to date with the developments which will enable us to give you a realistic updates regarding project completion.