Wexham School hosts official opening event celebrating its new facilities

The students of Wexham School moved into their new facilities last November and have been enjoying their new classrooms and library facilities ever since, but recently the addition to the school was officially opened by the Worshipful the Mayor of Slough Cllr Avtar Kaur Cheema.

Headteacher Lawrence Smith and Leader of the Council, Councillor James Swindlehurst visited the school’s new teaching block to tour the facilities.

They were joined by the school’s students and teachers as well as representatives from Slough Borough Council, Slough Urban Renewal, Morgan Sindall Construction and School Governors.

The new teaching block has been named the Woodside Building and the new library, resource centre and sixth form named the Orchard Library. The school drew on its history when choosing the names of its new facilities as Wexham School was created when Woodside County Secondary School and The Orchard County Secondary School combined in the 1980s.

The work at Wexham School is part of the council’s ambitious school places programme – a multi-million pound investment in primary and secondary school buildings, extensions and new schools – to provide enough places for Slough’s current and future young people.

The Wexham School expansion includes the new 3,000 square metre three storey Woodside Building that houses 29 new classrooms for English, Special Educational Needs (SEN), Humanities and Languages, three of which have dedicated ICT facilities. The Woodside Building also provides staff workrooms, group rooms, a new student reception and welfare facilities, a new library and a sixth form study centre. The project also provided for remodelling works to the school’s old library facilities to create two new science laboratories and the demolition of an end of life Fowler Building to create additional hard and soft landscaping for the school.

Lawrence Smith, headteacher at Wexham School, said: “We are standing in this wonderful library as part of the Woodside Building and I couldn’t be happier with our school’s new facilities. The importance of a learning environment on the wellbeing of the students cannot be underestimated.
This has seen a magnificent change to the school and the children really feel they have been invested in. A big thank you to Slough Borough Council, Morgan Sindall and Slough Urban Renewal.”

Councillor James Swindlehurst, leader of the council, added: “The Woodside Building at Wexham School is part of the 27 million pounds we have invested in school estate in Slough in the last 18 months. We have been delighted to work with Lawrence, and Slough Urban Renewal has delivered fantastic quality, and the scale and excellent design of this building is testament to the hard work of everyone involved. Thank you to everyone in the school for their involvement, it has been a joy to see it evolve, and what a pleasure to be here at the opening today.”

The Wexham School expansion project was undertaken by Slough Urban Renewal (SUR), a partnership between Slough Borough Council and Morgan Sindall Investments Ltd which is driving regeneration across the town including in leisure, housing, community and school buildings.