Great Park Academy Permanent Site
Newsletter – April 2025
We are delighted to report that progress on the new school building is going very well. A lot has happened since the start of the year.
As you may have seen on social media, Catherine McKinnell MP visited the site on Valentine’s Day and was impressed with the progress and how the school is taking shape. During our recent site tour, we observed that several classrooms, including the science laboratories, are fully fitted out and ready for the quality assurance checks by the DfE‘s Technical Advisor team, Turner and Townsend.
Landscaping work has now begun, and trees have been planted around the exterior of the building, particularly on the side facing the nature reserve. Our students have recently potted tree saplings, with each form class planting and caring for its own tree. They will nurture these saplings until they are ready to be planted at the new school site. The students look forward to watching them grow and thrive as they progress through their own education at the new school.
In March, as part of National Open Doors Week, Galliford Try invited a group of students to visit the site to tour the building and participate in a construction careers workshop. The students learned about various career pathways, job opportunities, and the importance of STEM subjects in the construction industry. They explored roles such as digital and technical design using AR headsets, like the ones many of them use when playing video games! The tour included a full walk-through of our new three-story building, where they saw science laboratories, classrooms, the dining hall, theatre and sports centre. On the day, students commented on how much they liked the building's spacious, light-filled design and the stunning views across the Havannah nature reserve.
Newcastle City Council’s planning application to reconfigure NGP Park and Ride to include the drop off and pick up area for Great Park Academy was approved at the NCC planning committee meeting on Friday 28th March. The plans include a footpath to provide a direct and safe walking route between the drop-off area and the school site.
As you may be aware, there have been some delays in NGP Consortium securing planning consent for the delivery of various strategic routes across Newcastle Great Park. These include work to upgrade the Wagonway, including the student entrances to Great Park Academy from Primrose Lane. Please be reassured that this will not delay the opening of the new school building in September. Gosforth Group Trust, Newcastle City Council, the Department for Education and Havannah First School are working closely to ensure that there will be a safe, practical alternative route for student access pending completion of the Wagonway upgrade.
In the upcoming stages, the focus will be on finishing the brickwork and the remaining ground floor walls and ceilings and then completing the internal decoration, ready to bring in all the loose furniture. Our ICT contractor, European Electronique Ltd. will also be starting work on site installing a state-of-the-art Wi-Fi system along with all the ICT equipment needed to support Teaching and Learning of the highest quality.
We hope you have a wonderful Easter break and look forward to sharing more frequent updates and photos on the progress of our new school building with you next term as the construction programme enters its final stages.
Yours sincerely,
Katherine Billingsley, Principal