Reef Way school (Ropemakers Academy) is a new three-story SEN school located on a new housing estate in Hailsham, East Sussex and will cater for up to 80 students aged 4-16 with SEMH and ASD.
The £1 Million project consists of a steel frame structure with external GE Brick cladding. The school is built with the purpose of giving children with specialist educational requirements a head start with them being able to take advantage of a higher teacher to pupil ratio than you would expect in a regular school. There will also be more space available for the pupils to utilise should they require it to get the best out of their education, including a sensory room and calm rooms.
There is a central lower ground floor plant room and separate tank room which feed the building. Externally, there are plenty of activity spaces for the pupils to use such as a gardening area, an outdoor games court, a small pond, lots of playground and primary and secondary teaching areas complemented with specialist therapy facilities.
CMB carried out the mechanical contract on this project which provided:
Ventilation; both natural through Hybrid units and mechanical MVHR’s and a central AHU
LTHW heating via a gas fired boiler to serve low surface temperature radiators and ceiling mounted radiant panels.
Direct gas fired hot water cylinder to supply the domestic hot water distribution.
Trend BEMS system
VRV air conditioning system to the comms room
Natural gas system to supply the science and food classrooms.
The project was successfully handed over in January 2021 after CMB’s 7 months spent on the build.
A special mention goes to the CMB team who worked on this project as well as Main Contractor, Willmott Dixon.
