Are you bursting at the seams with your new school intake?

We at the Learning Escape all hope that you all enjoyed your well-deserved summer break, and that you have returned to the new school year refreshed and ready to tend to what is likely to be a large intake of little ones. Are you however, starting to feel like your school premises are slightly bulging at the seams?

The rising birth rate of recent years has resulted in councils needing to provide an extra 90,000 places last year, with a further 130,000 expected to be needed over the next 3 years. It would appear that in many instances, the extra funding committed by the Government to tackle the issue of rising primary school intakes has been insufficient to provide adequately for the necessary additional infrastructure.

In many instances, schools have been forced to increase their class sizes. According to Labour’s shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, the number of five to seven year olds in large classes of over 30 children has spiralled by 200% since 2010, to almost 100,000 infants. Whilst we appreciate that our primary school leaders are a resourceful and committed group of people, there are only so many sardines to be crammed into a tin.

No doubt many of you will have converted every available storage space and cubby hole, maximised usage of the school hall and taken on board as many extra staff as is practicable, to ensure your pupils receive the very best education possible. However, the better you have become at the art of letting out your seams, the more your intake is likely to have grown and you are likely to be feeling rather like you are wearing a belt on its last notch with a rapidly expanding waistline!

Now is probably a good time to start thinking about this time next year. The Government have recently committed an additional £2.35bn funding package to provide additional places. If you have been fortunate enough to secure some funds to expand your school’s premises, then we invite you to consider taking a modular approach to providing extra teaching space.

Often less expensive than a traditional extension of existing premises and almost always less disruptive, a Learning Escape classroom will also provide an inspiring learning environment that can be specifically tailored to meet the needs of your school as it continues to thrive and grow. Here are just a few of the comments from our many happy customers:

"The team at The Learning Escape showed us that a tight budget doesn’t mean that you can’t create a fantastic building. It’s clear that they have years of experience delivering a full service, we didn’t even need to worry about the paperwork."

John Abrahams, Assistant Head and Art Block customer

"I am absolutely delighted with the project and the craftsmanship, the technical expertise and the all round quality of the finish is excellent. I recommend The Learning Escape to any school and the whole experience has just been so positive."

Isobel Gaffney, Head Teacher and eco-classroom customer