Town gets glimpse of High School of the future

It will be on display for three weeks.

Planning permission for the state-of-the-art new school building and skills centre was granted in September and it's hoped that work can begin on the project later this year with a target completion date of late in 2010.

Working in partnership with the school, East Sussex County Council will build the new school at Gunters Lane and Skill Centre at Down Road.

The bulk of the funding is coming from the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme but 4m is being invested from the council's own funds.

Announcing the model's exhibition this week, the county council said: "The model and illustrations show an exciting and innovative design and follow months of design work and consultation with students, parents and the local community."

Cllr Keith Glazier, county cabinet lead member for children's and adult's services, said: "The model and the illustrations will enable people to see what a really innovative and cutting edge design we are proposing for the new high school. I hope they will share our excitement and enthusiasm for a fantastic new facility not just for students in the town but for the whole community."

The new school will not feature traditional classrooms but instead will have a range of learning zones that can be used for more than one purpose and support a range of teaching and learning approaches.

They will be arranged around a large, open central heart.

The building will include several sustainable technologies to help it reduce its carbon footprint substantially compared to other schools built in recent years. The school will operate an extended day and students will be able to follow a wide range of academic and vocational courses.

It will also incorporate the latest ICT equipment and each student will have their own hand-held machine or laptop to work on. Students will be helped and encouraged to research online and become independent learners making progress with help from teachers and other support staff.

*For more information on the Bexhill High School Building Schools for the Future project, including electronic copies of the Building for the Future newsletter are available on the school pages of the County Council website www.eastsussex.gov.uk/educationandlearning/schools/development/bexhill

and through the school's website at www.bexhillhigh.e-sussex.sch.uk