Parent Bulletin 21.06.2024
21st June 2024
This week's bulletin is available here.
Dear Parents and Carers
We said goodbye to our Year 11s yesterday in the sunshine as they came back into school for their Leavers Day, including a final assembly (with a great video from the staff here, including messages from ex members of staff), and some of their old teachers also came in school to see them too, including Mrs Coates, for which they were all very grateful, and then enjoyed some pizza and ice cream as well as some outdoor fun! We hope everyone is looking forward to Prom next week and we also wish every student all the success in their post-16 plans and hope that they will keep in touch with us here at Cambourne.
I’m pleased to report that the school will take full possession of our six new buildings from today. These include an extension of the Music and Drama block to provide new studios, classrooms and practice rooms; a new block extending the Art Department and providing four new classrooms; a large extension providing a beautiful School library and eleven classrooms for the English Department; a linked extension to the Science wing providing four new labs and two Food Technology rooms, a large new Dining Hall and of course, our fabulous Sixth Form Centre which will welcome its first students in September. These new facilities will give us ample room to accommodate growth in pupil numbers as the West Cambourne development proceeds, and we’re looking forward to enjoying these new facilities next term. Please note that for parents who drop off early or pick up later from school, that from Monday 24th June until the end of term the library will be closed, as the move to its new location progresses.
Unfortunately, there’s a less positive outlook for vehicular access to our site. At a meeting of the South Cambs Planning Committee in January, the Committee voted against allowing all vehicles to use the new road linking the Business Park to West Cambourne, despite this being a requirement of the Local Plan and strong objections from many stakeholders including our schools. This road is part of the housing development to be built by SCIP, a joint venture between SCDC and the Hill Group, but instead of providing a direct vehicular link to school from the dual carriageway, it will be a bus and cycle route only. Cars will be forced to drive through the narrow roads of the new housing development when Sheepfold Lane is closed in 2025. At this point, we will have to implement a one-way system at peak times to take traffic through the schools’ site and out via the Sixth Form entrance in West Cambourne, to try to avoid complete gridlock. I’m grateful to everyone who objected to this scheme – 87 written objections were made – but the outcome is very disappointing.
As part of our own construction work over the summer holiday, we’re hoping to improve the layout of our main drivers’ entrance. The path linking the schools to Swansley Lane is to be widened and we’re trying hard to get a cycle path installed along its full length. I will keep you informed of any further developments.
We have also been made aware by a parent about the application to complete the development of Cambourne High Street, which may have an effect on our pupils travelling to and from school. This is not something that the school can follow up, but it may be something that our parents want to express their view on. Information about the planning can be found on this link: 24/01548/FUL | Erection of 87 No. apartments, 30 No. townhouses, 1,401sqm of commercial (use class E(a-c and e)), realignment of existing road, public open space and landscaping. | Land North And South Of High Street Cambourne Cambridgeshire (greatercambridgeplanning.org). With the main contact being: Mike Huntington Principal Planning Officer - Strategic Sties on mike.Huntington@greatercambridgeplanning.org
Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend,
Lynn Mayes
Principal
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