Building plan
Charlton House is a two-storey building with a split ground level. It is located near residential properties and shares some facilities with the neighbouring Hawthorn Court Extra Care unit (assisted living for residents who may have a range of care needs).
As the new centre will be close to neighbouring houses, plans will include measures and solutions to ensure privacy, and prevent noise disturbance, both for children using the new facilities and for residents living close to the building.
The lower ground floor will provide the school dining hall, gym and other curriculum support spaces. It will also provide staff rooms and offices with their own dedicated staff entrance.
The upper ground floor will provide the new school's main entrance and reception, an assembly hall, classrooms and an array of curriculum support spaces.
The first floor will provide the two new children's homes, each with their own front door, and a shared space between the homes with admin and support spaces.
External appearance and outside spaces
We plan to modify the existing building to create a new school entrance where the recycling store is currently located. The entrance will be made recognisable through the introduction of feature coloured cladding, a new canopy and new entrance doors.
Elsewhere, we plan to improve the appearance of the building throughout, using cladding to replace the timber weatherboarding, which is now looking worn and outdated. We plan to keep other changes to the external appearance of the building to a minimum.
Draft masterplan
Charlton House building, facilities and setting plan
1 Proposed new school main entrance
2 Enhanced entrance
3 Drop-off and emergency bay
4 Home entrances and gardens
5 Staff and kitchen entrances
6 Quiet garden space
7 Active garden space
8 Neighbouring properties
9 Public open space
10 Shared bin collection point
11 Proposed new car parking for school and homes
12 Additional parking
To support the building’s operations, there will be approximately twenty parking spaces (numbers 11 and 12). These will be for senior school staff, the home's registered managers, Blue Badge holders, emergency access, EV charging, and pupil drop-off. Any other staff will need to park within the local area.
The school will have a new accessible entrance into the school at the upper ground floor level, near the drop-off and parking bays, on Hawthorne Lane (number 1). The residential homes will each have a separate external entrance, with its own private garden space (both marked number 4).
The school will have two outdoor garden spaces: a smaller quiet garden (number 6) and a slightly larger active garden (number 7).
How we plan to use the facilities
During the school day
Students will use the external spaces at break times during the school day. Individual students or small groups will also use this outside space during the day to explore their environment, for physical exercise to run, climb, balance and spin, to support their sensory motor difficulties. Students will have supervision and supported from staff at all times. Generally, students find outside space calming, but any who find this too stressful will be able to go back inside with a staff member.
The use of outside space will often depend on the weather, but we will encourage children to spend time outside as much as possible in the right all-weather gear.
Students will also make good use of the local community and staff will support them to visit parks, the library, shops, cafes, the leisure centre for swimming and keep fit activities or walks.
Outside the school day
A small number of students will stay overnight using the residential facilities.
The outside areas will be available for students after school, but will have staff support, organised and activities and play opportunities at all times. After teatime it might be more individual students supported by staff who access outside areas as part of their personalised programme.