Three schools are to undergo ‘urgent’ transformations to address the growing pressures on their resources. 

Temporary units will be built at Piggott’s, St. Crispin’s and Emmbrook schools in Wokingham to accommodate an increased demand for places and to improve currently inadequate facilities. 

Piggott’s C of E School, located on Wargrave Road, submitted plans to install a single storey modular unit, for a temporary period of five years before being replaced by a permanent new building, which would provide four additional classrooms and associated toilet facilities.  

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This is to meet the increased demand for school places in September of this year – when it is looking to enroll an extra 30 students on the register. 

To accommodate the extra pupils, the school, for students aged four to eighteen years old, will be looking to employ one additional member of staff. 

Piggott’s, which currently has 1,555 students and 180 staff, has also been experiencing timetabling issues due to a shortage of classrooms. 

St. Crispin’s school, a mixed comprehensive located on London Road, proposed to install a two-storey modular unit – which comprises of two science classrooms on the ground floor and two general classrooms on the first floor. 

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This is to address the deficit in teaching rooms for the current number of pupils, as well as to ease the timetabling issues being experienced.  

The unit, which would be for a temporary period of two years before being replaced by a permanent building elsewhere on the site, will also allow the school to accommodate the anticipated increase in student intake expected in September of this year. 

The plan will allow the number of pupils attending the school to increase by 30, from 1,230 to 1,260, as well as being able to employee an additional full-time teacher.  

Emmbrook School, situated on Emmbrook Road in Wokingham, proposed the installation of a modular unit to accommodate a new Sixth Form Centre, with space for a common room and study area and for administration offices.  

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The building, which would again be for a temporary period of five before being replaced with a permanent solution elsewhere on the site, is needed to address some of its current facilities which are inadequate for the school’s requirements. 

At present, the sixth form is in an area next to the dining hall; however, it is deemed too small to cater for the number of students. Moving the sixth form to the temporary unit will allow for the dining hall to be extended. 

The proposals received unanimous approval from the Wokingham Borough Council planning committee after they were deemed “absolutely necessary.” 

Committee member, Councillor Stephen Conway, said: “We have three school applications which urgently must get approved and they are time limited.”