Planning permission has now been secured for the development which includes state-of-the-art facilities for pupils and the wider local community.
The Olympic Village, which lies adjacent to the Olympic Park and Stratford City sites, will accommodate athletes during the 2012 Games and will leave the legacy of thousands of new homes, parks, and community facilities after 2012. At the heart of the community facilities to be left in legacy will be Chobham Academy – a world-class new education campus. The Academy is scheduled to open in September 2013 and will offer:
ODA Chief Executive David Higgins said: 'Chobham Academy will be a world-class development and puts an educational legacy at the heart of our regeneration ambitions for east London. The Olympic Village will create thousands of new homes for Londoners and the Academy will be at the heart of the new facilities we are building to serve new and existing communities for generations to come.'
Sebastian Coe, Chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee, said: 'It is very exciting to see the Olympic dream taking shape, and leaving a lasting legacy of an Academy that will inspire young people in all sorts of different ways. At Games-time this will provide a great piece of Village infrastructure that will be the home of lots of team support services, but to have so many learning facilities at the Academy after the Games proves how London 2012 has been a real catalyst for change and development in so many areas.'
Lend Lease CEO Dan Labbad, said: 'Chobham Academy is an essential element of the Village that will contribute to ensuring the ongoing regeneration of the area beyond the Games. Complete with state-of-the-art facilities it will play a key role in creating a mixed, diverse and more sustainable community, with education at its core.'
Schools Minister Jim Knight said: 'After the Games are over I want the Olympic values of excellence and discipline to reverberate in the institutions left behind. Like those great Olympic and Paralympic athletes, pupils at this new state of the art academy should be inspired by those values to be the best they can and I'm confident they will be.'
Chobham Academy is being developed by Lend Lease and the ODA in partnership with the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the London Borough of Newham, and the Learning & Skills Council London East. The Academy will be part of the Government’s National Academy Programme and will be run by a not-for-profit Registered Charitable Trust. The Academy will be revenue funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
Planning permission for Chobham Academy has now been secured and construction work is due to start on site later this summer. The Academy will be built at the north-eastern end of the Village site and will initially be used during the 2012 Games as the main Village operations centre including team management, communications and Village operations. After the Games, the Academy is scheduled to open for the school term in September 2013.
Construction work across the rest of the Olympic Village development is well-underway with the first residential buildings in the Village starting to rise out of the ground.
Notes to editors:
1. An image of Chobham Academy together with the latest photos of construction work on the Olympic Village site can be downloaded from http://mm.gettyimages.com/mm/nicePath/locog?nav=pr122309805
2. Chobham Academy has been designed by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (who designed the Stirling Prize-shortlisted Westminster Academy), and landscape designers Kinnear Landscape Architects. BAM are the preferred bidder for the construction contract for Chobham Academy
3. The London Organising Committee (LOCOG) runs the Get Set, the London 2012 education programme - a range of free, flexible resources with the Olympic Values (excellence, friendship and respect) and Paralympic Values (courage, determination, inspiration and equality) at their heart.
Resources available on the site are for 3-19 year olds and include inspirational films, interactive games, fact sheets, news articles and more, along with an Educators section for practitioners and senior management.
‘Get Set’ offers the opportunity to ‘Go Further’ and get involved in initiatives supported by London 2012 partners in eight key themes - internationalism; communication, collaboration and citizenship; practical learning; PE and sport; enterprise; sustainability and regeneration; culture and creativity, and healthy, active lifestyles.
School and colleges working with ‘Get Set’ now have the chance to apply to join the ‘Get Set network’ and receive the London 2012 education logo from September 2009 in recognition of their learning through the London 2012 Games. London 2012 is currently running a competition for budding designers aged 16–21 to create the infill for the London 2012 education logo.
For more information please go to www.london2012.com/getset or www.london2012.com/educationlogo
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For further information please contact the Olympic Delivery Authority Press Office on +44 (0)203 2012 700.
The construction of the venues and infrastructure of the London 2012 Games is funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor, The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency.
Find out the latest from London 2012 HQ on our blog.
New school will create 1,800 spaces for pupils aged 3–19
- Spaces for 1,800 students between the ages of 3 and 19
- Nursery, primary and secondary schools, including a sixth-form with adult learning facilities
- The Academy will specialise in Performing Arts and English with a focus on sports excellence within the context of the world-class new sporting venues in the Olympic Park
- A comprehensive lifelong learning programme to meet the needs of existing local communities and the new communities that will develop in the area after 2012
- Day Care Facilities for children from 0-5 years old, located on the school site, and fully integrated into the nursery and lower school
- A community arts complex for both the school and the community
- A Civic Hub, available for residents to use for social activities, meetings, gatherings and leisure pursuits
- A sports facility for the Academy and the community