Sports Hall Consultation

29th April 2021
Dear Parent/Carer/local stakeholder

We are writing to you to consult on our proposal to build a new sports hall and 4 classrooms to enhance the facilities and capacity at Ivanhoe College as we prepare to become an 11-16 school.

We are consulting with you about:

• Building a new sports hall to provide enhanced facilities in the centre of Ashby for both the students at Ivanhoe College and for shared community use outside of school time.
• Building four additional classrooms attached to the sports hall to provide specialist accommodation on the Ivanhoe College site to ensure excellent facilities for PE and other subjects as we become an 11-16 school.
• Providing extra overall capacity for 100 pupils at the school to ensure availability of adequate classroom space at Ivanhoe in anticipation of growth in housebuilding in the town and surrounding locality to meet current and future local demand for secondary school places.

As a Governing Board we have been planning carefully for age range change and striving for excellence in our provision. Our priority is always to ensure the best possible educational provision for our students and to continue to develop our site and facilities in order to support this. We believe these new facilities will be a great addition to Ivanhoe and will create even more opportunities for our students and as well as for evening and weekend community use, working together with NWL District Council.

As you will be aware, in just over a year’s time Ivanhoe College will be starting the process of age range change with our first Year 10 students beginning their GCSE courses with us from August 2022. Our provision for PE and sport will be greatly enhanced by the addition of the new sports hall and additional teaching spaces will ensure we can meet the capacity needs during age range change and also the growth in pupil numbers across our area.

We have already gained planning permission from the District Council and Local Authority for the new sports hall and classrooms. Details of the proposed building can be seen on the Ivanhoe College website here https://www.ivanhoe.co.uk/more/sports-hall-plans and also on the NWL District Council planning portal here: https://plans.nwleics.gov.uk/public-access/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=QAZWF1LRHHJ00

A further step we now need to take is to gain approval from the Department for Education (DfE) and as part of this process we want to consult with all our stakeholders.

Further information about the proposed changes:

• The building costs, approx. £1.7m, will be met by Section 106 funding, which is money provided to the Local Authority by house builders to increase the capacity of schools in the area where new houses are built.
• We have recently increased the hard outdoor surface area on our site in order to address the loss of outside play space. Obviously the new facilities will greatly improve our indoor PE space and provision during cold and wet weather.
• Adding these new facilities to Ivanhoe College will increase the capacity of the school building from its current 990 to 1090. To be clear, this is increased capacity to ensure we can meet the growth of pupil numbers in the area and not an increase in our planned admission number
• We are not proposing any change to the Admissions Policy which we consulted with you on recently and which you can find on our website. The Ivanhoe admission number for next year will be 193, which we consulted on recently and has been agreed as part of the Ashby/Ibstock area plan for age range change.

The formal 5-week consultation process begins on Thursday 29th April 2021 and will run until Thursday 3rd June 2021.

Responses can be submitted in writing to 'Consultation' c/o Ivanhoe College, North Street, Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire. LE65 1HX, or by email to consultations@ivanhoe.co.uk To help us in collating responses, please indicate whether you are a parent and the year group(s) of your child(ren).

All views will be considered by the Governing Board before submitting the application to the DfE.

We look forward to hearing your views.
Yours faithfully

Alison Allford                                             Graham McKay
Headteacher                                              Chair of Governors