Award-winning Manchester School Sets Design Standards

Award winning Gorton Education Village in Manchester is setting the standards when it comes to design and the environment.

The school, which was the first in the north of England to be completed through the Building Schools for the Future programme, has been working closely with Manchester City Council's Catering Services team to create a specially-designed new range of dining furniture.

It has been deemed so successful that the supplier has incorporated these designs into their range for use among other schools across the UK.

Following a detailed workshop with the key members and the catering services team, a whole new range of benches, tables, chairs, and seating areas have been designed to suit pupils from the former Cedar Mount High School and Melland school which caters for children with special educational needs.

Up to 200 pupils can now sit down to enjoy lunch together using custom designed furniture. The style is contemporary with tables and benches in contrast finishes and coloured, fully-moulded plastic chairs.  There are also poser tables for a more casual dining experience and an outside seating area under a colourful gazebo.

The Catering Services team also liaised with the school to help them move from using disposable crockery to reusable ones and through advising the school on how to take responsibility for not throwing away plates and cutlery, encouraged environmental awareness. This has reduced disposables by 70%.

The catering equipment was specifically selected to deliver Manchester City Council's policy to provide Healthy Eating Options and a new clearing station suitable for senior pupils has also been designed.

Councillor Bernard Priest, Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources said: "The catering services team worked closely with the school's key members and an interior designer to create new furniture specifically designed for the pupils, with the emphasis on being a ‘school for the future' and being able to enjoy something new and different.

"This has resulted in the supplier now using the new design as a standard feature in their range and we are pleased to say that this has had a fantastic response from the pupils themselves."

he overall design of the school emerged from an extended period of consultation with the staff, students and governing bodies of the combined Melland and Cedar Mount High schools. The idea of bringing mainstream and SEN pupils together on one site meant that the concerns of staff, parents, and the children had to be addressed at every stage of the process, from inception through to the meticulously planned two-month moving-in period.   

Gorton Education Village has since scooped first prize in the Best Healthy Learning Environment category at the 2009 British Council for School Environments (BCSE) awards for best practice in UK design and construction of schools. 

Entries were received from architects, contractors, suppliers, local authorities and schools themselves for submission across key areas of the design, building and equipping of schools.