A MAJOR revamp of Pershore High School has been given the green light thanks to a £3.4million cash injection from the Government.
Staff and students at the Station Road venue were left overjoyed when they received the money from the Academies Capital Maintenance Fund for 2014 to 2016.
The money will be used to breathe new life into the school’s current out of date buildings, many of which are more than four decades old.
Pershore’s MP Harriett Baldwin showed her support and lobbied Schools Minister David Laws to get the department to back plans to improve the school’s current classrooms.
The Academies Capital Maintenance Fund has been set up to allow schools such as Pershore High School to bid for funding to improve buildings.
The first round of funding saw a total of 2,015 academies apply with 3,300 projects worth more than £1.4 billion being considered.
And following Government assessment and moderation £393 million has been allocated to 1,134 academies for 1,388 projects.
Headteacher Clive Corbett told the Observer the news meant the school’s dream had finally become a reality.
“This award offers a wonderful opportunity to further improve the school’s facilities, notably in the areas of art and design, humanities and modern languages.
“The new buildings will allow students to learn in even more exciting and interesting ways. I am hugely grateful to Harriet Baldwin MP for her unstinting support for our project.”
The project will see the overhaul of two teaching blocks, with some of the school’s current facilities having been built in the 1970s, and due for an upgrade more than two decades ago.
It’s expected that the building work will take place over the next two years, ensuring the town’s high school is geared up for the next generation of students.
Mrs Baldwin said: “The new blocks will make a huge difference to the school and add impressive new buildings to the campus.
“I was more than willing to make the case for this funding and I wrote to both the Minister and the funding department’s chief executive to press for some long-overdue investment in classrooms.
“Head teacher Clive Corbett took me on a tour of some of the older buildings when I last visited the school and I was happy to offer my support when he put the funding bid together.
“Pershore High School pulls out all the stops to give their students the best possible education and investing in our children’s education is fundamental to the Government’s long term economic plan.”
