Santa's Visit

Santa came to visit us today and distribute presents to the children in Years 1&2. He and his little helper told all the children about his home near the North Pole and how his elves helped him make the presents. The children wanted to know how he got their e-mails and where his reindeer were. Santa explained that his elves went on computer courses during the summer and that Rudolph and the other reindeer had to stay outside London during the day as they were not allowed to fly and confuse the planes.

All in all a memorable visit. Thanks Santa.

End of Term UpdateThe new dining hall is taking shape. You can see the serving hatches in this picture.

Here you can see the view out of the dining room windows. It will lead out to the playground.

Here is a year 6 classroom. It is virtually finished except for the floor tiles. Outside the classrooms is the balcony pictured below.

Thank you all for putting up with the delays. It will be wonderful when it is finally finished.

Latest News of the South Wing

Work inside the new building, to be known as the South Wing, is really progressing well.

This is a picture of one of the new classrooms. The lady in the picture is Danna Walker, one of the architects who is working on the building design.

You get a better idea of the size of the rooms in this picture. One of the year 6 classes will move into this room.

This is the staffroom. It is large because nearly 100 people will be working on the staff when the building is full.

Groundwork

The site is beginning to look a little clearer. Here you can see where they are digging up the old playground surface. The builders are digging down about 400 mm to remove the old tarmac. They are going to use a variety of materials on the new surface. The area around the new building will have the look of a patio.

New External Toilet Block


In the picture you can see the new toilet block being built along the Capland Street wall.
The scaffolding is being taken down so that the playground surface can be renewed.


Most of the windows are now in place and you can really get a good idea of what the new buidling will look like.

(If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can see it in more detail.)

A New Year

Thank you Mark Ziuziakowski for reminding me that it was about time I updated the building blog. Lots has happend in the exisiting building over the summer.

The old kitchen has now become two classrooms. Currently 4 Lilac and 4 Violet are based in them but once the new building is complete the reception classes will move into them.

They are equipped with new, height adjustable, interactive whiteboards.

The dining hall has also been decorated. This will become a hall for the nursery and reception once the work is complete. For the time being it remains our lunch hall.



In the new building the classrooms are progressing. They have now been plastered and work has started on installing the electrics.

Computer Room

Though you still can't see inside the new building work is progressing well. This will be the new computer suite on the top floor. It's been plastered and you can see lots of ducting on the ceiling. This will help keep the room full of fresh air. The staircase linking the old building and the new one has started to be installed today.

No Room

Ben, our cello teacher, had to use the bottom corridoor to give his lessons last week. There is now so much going on that space is at a real premium. Juniors use infant classes when they go out to play. Everyone has been very good about the building work but we are beginning to feel a bit crowded.

What's Happening In The Kitchen

Now that we've been eating sandwiches for half a term we thought we'd show you what's going on in the old kitchen.

The red door is the old outside entrance to the kitchen. The room has been replastered and soon a new floor will be poured.

When the work is complete the kitchen will become two new reception classrooms. (Though Year 1 are likely to use them for the first half term.)

You can see one of the new doors that will allow recpetion to get to a new outside space where the car park use to be.

What used to be Blue class is being converted into the rest of the nursery. The painter is decorating it now. Hopefully it will be ready in about three weeks. Red class will move into it for the last few weeks of term to allow their room to be redecorated.

Green Class To Move

Green Class will move on Monday into what was 3 Lilac's classroom. The final finishing touches are just being put to the room and the painters and tilers will be woring over the weekend to complete the work.

The room is larger than it was before as it now includes the old staff toilet space.

The old sinks have been replaced with modern ones which have a proper work surface to use.

When the building work is complete the classrooms at this end of the building will be for Year one classes.

The Old Nursery Is No More


Over the Easter break the builders demolished the old nursery leaving a space which will be turned into a new play area for the new nursery and some outdoor space for the reception classes.

The New Hall

The rooms in the new building are starting to take shape. Here you can see the new dining hall. The openings at the end will be where the store rooms for tables are. On the left will be the kitchen and on the right will be the big playground.


This is one of the new classrooms in the new build. Attached to the ceiling is equipment to capture the warm air. This will then be circulated back to heat cold air coming into the building. The rooms are slightly larger than the rooms in the old builing but they have a lower ceiling height. Because of this I don't think they 'feel' as large.


Mr Zacharias is looking at one of the new ICT suites. this one is on the top floor of the new building and will be used mainly by year two and the juniors. There is another suite on the first floor next to the new library.

The Nursery Moves

The large room of the new nursery is almost complete and we have been asked by the builders if we would move the existing nursery into it. They want us to do this so they can go ahead and demolish the exisiting nursery to get access to the walls behind the portakabin.

Over the past two days staff have moved the furniture and equipment out of the old building and into the new one ready for the new term.

Meanwhile in the nursery playground workmen have started to erect scaffolding. The whole building will be encased in it over the Easter break to allow the builders to start work renewing the guttering. The old guttering is in very poor condition and water is coming into the building. It needs replacing before we can redecorate the school in the autumn term.

THE NEW NURSERY


The main space of the new nursery should be finished today. Hurrah.

Here you can see the view out to the nursery playground. The temporary classroom will be removed over the summer holidays.

Blue Class will also be come part of the nursery and you will be able to get to it through a new door.

The colour scheme is interesting with the mix of powder blue on the floor, green, yellow, orange, and dark blue. I'm still not too sure what to make of it all, but it's clean and bright and BIG.

At the far end of the room are the toilets and shower.

Big Changes

There are already big changes to Lilac and Green Classrooms. In the picture you can see the workmen putting extra boards on the ceiling in Green class, the old staffroom. They are doing this to increase the fire protection in the room. The boards are very heavy and the men have to work hard to lift them up as high as the ceiling. They are standing on something called a scaffolding tower.


A new partition wall is being built between the classrooms. Between the double layers of plasterboard is a layer of insulation that will help soundproof the rooms from each other.

The window on the left used to be the window in the old staffroom toilet. The blue cupboard is part of the new sink unit.

The Gate is Finally Finished

Thankfully we all will not have to risk life and limb walking around the corner into Capland Street. The Frampton Street wall is now rebuilt and the gate back in operation. Mr Zacharias can give up his other job as a human traffic bollard.

Other work during half term included the building of this cupboard in Red class. The workmen will be opening a new door behind it so that the children can get to a new play area when it becomes a new reception classroom in September. A new doorway was also put in the class to get through to Blue class.

Green class are now in the middle hall because the builders are now knocking walls down between the old staff room, 1 Green's current classoom, and 3 Lilac. The staff toilet and stockcupboard have gone. By Easter we will have two new, larger classrooms which will be home to Year 1 classes after September. The middle mall will become the KS1 P.E. hall.

Steps

Just before half-term a set of concrete steps was delivered for the new build. This will form the internal fire escape on the Lisson Grove side of the building. As usual the crane drive managed to drop the steps down carefully through the smallest of gaps.


Here you can see some of the steps already in position and the workmen fixing some others in place. Because they are working so high up they are wearing safety harnesses. These let them attach themselves to the building while they work near the edge. The green platform is the top of a machine called a 'cherry picker.' The workmen can contol the cherry picker while they are standing in the platform.

Snow

This is less a blog about the building and more about the snow. On February 8th it snowed enough to cover the playground and, much to the joy of everyone, it was deep enough to play with. All those who got to school in good time had a great time in what remains of the big playground.

In the background you can see the frame of the new building. Behind the hoarding the bricklayers have started to build the side walls.

Miss Rice joined us to watch what was happening. She had the grat sense to shelter by the wooden fence and keep well clear of the snowballs flying around.

For other children this was the first time they had seen a decent amount of snow and they took the opportunity to build a snowman - with a little help from thier Mums.

Lets hope the snow lasts until playtime.
Snow in London is an interesting event. Many of the staff have made great efforts to overcome the difficulties it brings to the transport system. However, the whoops of joy it brings is a wonderous thing. (But I hope it's gone by the time we have to go home.)

The New Nursery

A lot of work has been going on inside the existing school building behind closed doors. What was Red Class, the stock cupboard and the library have been knocked through into one large room. This will become part of the new nursery. Blue Class will also form part of this.

The picture on the right shows what was the library and stock cupboard. On the floor in front of the heaters you can just make out some blue tiles which will be the colour of the new nursery floor.


The picture on the left shows what was 'Old' Red Class. New toilets are going to be installed at the far end of the room as well as a shower and a disabled toilet.

Once they have finished here the workmen will continue working along the ground floor classrooms making various changes. During the Easter holidays they will start converting our existing kitchen into two, new reception classrooms.