Enlarging the school presents a great opportunity to secure the long-term future of the school as an excellent place for young children to learn. It also enables us to meet our twin objectives of “Moving education forward” and “Creating a nurturing community”.

We expect to be able to attract and retain our best leaders and staff through being able to offer wider options for career progression whilst staying at the school. In time each year group will have two teachers and other support staff who can work collaboratively and share new ideas which we believe will enhance the professional development of all our staff.

We are updating the infrastructure of the existing building to provide an early years unit - co-locating nursery and reception- with dedicated outdoor learning space, which helps us move into the area of best practice for our youngest pupils. The dining room and other classrooms are being remodelled to make them work better for our pupils and staff. And ...at last.... we will be able to update our creaking water and heating systems.

In the new building the new small hall will be an asset for our music delivery. It will enable us to simultaneously deliver music lessons whilst using the current hall for PE for example. We expect to be able to move our music storage into the new small hall as well to maximise the space in the current hall and replace the storage facility lost by the guest house being demolished.

Places in reception classes at St Peter’s school have been under pressure for many years. In 2012/13 HCC started to discuss the idea of increasing the number of school places permanently to respond to demand in the local community. Projections for the demand for places presented by HCC indicate that this pressure would continue for many years to come.  As a public institution in the heart of the community, leaders and governors believe that it is right to respond to that demand.

We also expect a bigger St Peter’s to have greater financial security than if we stay as a one-form entry school.  Our financial forecasts as a two-form entry school look better and as budgets are very tight in education this is really important.