New school planned

Multi-million pound proposals have been submitted to build a 900-place academy school in Telford.

The school would replace Madeley Academy, formerly Madeley Court School, and be built near the existing school. The Madeley Academy Trust has submitted an application to Telford & Wrekin Council to build an academy for 11 to 16-year-olds at Castlefields Way, near the junction of Woodside Avenue, Woodside.

The application also includes a vocational training centre, gate house, three freestanding and six roof mounted wind turbines, five turf and four five-a-side floodlit pitches, a floodlit athletics track and a new vehicular/pedestrian access.

The school was granted academy status in April and its main sponsor is the Thomas Telford School.

Headteacher Vic Maher said: “We assumed academy status in April this year and the plan is that in September 2009, we would have a new building.

Fantastic

“We are still in negotiations with the Department for Skills and Education about the amount of space the building will take up and the cost of it.

“I think it is fantastic for the south of Telford which really, if you compare it with the rest of Telford, is the poor relation.

“For the children to have a state of the art building would be a sense of pride in the whole community.

“The children are very very excited about it, they are really looking forward to it.”

Mr Maher said the training centre would be a “fantastic bonus” for the school community.

“Currently it is very difficult to find appropriate training,” he added.

“The training courses will be for our own students in Year 9 onwards.

“Academic education is not right for every student.”

Mr Maher said he wanted to make sure every student who left the school got into “something appropriate”, either academically, through sixth form college or through employment.

“When I got here four years ago there were a lot of students who left and did not know what to do and I don’t want that for our children any more,” Mr Maher added.