Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District

Opening date for £20m secondary school confirmed

State-of-the-art facility set for 2022 launch

- By Gerry Warren gwarren@thekmgroup.co.uk

Academy bosses have revealed the opening date of a new £20 million secondary school in Canterbury.

Work is well under way on the demolition of the former Chaucer Technology School in Spring Lane, which will be replaced by the state-of-the-art Barton Manor School, now scheduled to open in September 2022. The build is a joint partnershi­p between Kent County Council, the Department for Education and Barton Court Academy Trust.

But it has been subject to a number of delays, more recently due to the coronaviru­s lockdown.

The trust will take possession of the building in the second quarter of 2022 to provide time for the school to be made ready for opening to Year 7 students in September 2022. Catering for 1,050 pupils, the school will be set across a splitlevel two and three-storey building and take approximat­ely 20 months to build. Executive head teacher of Barton Court Academy Trust, Kirstin Cardus, says it is a “truly exciting” project which offers an amazing opportunit­y to design a school from inception.

“It will provide Canterbury and the local area with muchneeded secondary school places,” she said. Barton Manor will be a fiveform, secondary, non-selective school and work closely with Barton Court Grammar School. Ms Cardus continued: “It will provide an outstandin­g standard of education for all students, harnessing the academic track record of the grammar with the state-of-the-art facilities and innovative curriculum provided by Barton Manor School.” She says the new school will be a centre of excellence for applied studies, with specialist facilities. “This will create a unique opportunit­y for the local area with a new free school built on a strong foundation of success coupled with brand new modern facilities to complement high standards and achievemen­t,” she added.

Barton Manor will feature 7,200sq m of teaching space, with both traditiona­l spaces and modern vocational training studios for subjects including catering, resistant materials, hair and beauty therapy, performing arts, ICT, business and health and social care.

The aim is to give students industry-standard resources and a 21st century working environmen­t to develop career-based skills, including advanced modern apprentice­ships.

 ??  ?? Demolition of the former Chaucer Technology School
Demolition of the former Chaucer Technology School

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