Working within a £220,000 budget, we remodelled Alde Valley High School to create six new classrooms and a relocated library, and transformed the former Middle School into a sixth form centre for around 170 students. By reconfiguring spaces rather than extending, and restoring the old main hall as a bright social atrium, the scheme gave both buildings a modern, inspiring new identity.

This 1950s school, shared by Poplar and Northfield St Nicholas primary schools, was extended and refurbished while both stayed “live”. Poor additions were stripped away, and a new rear extension around a landscaped courtyard, with varied roof lines and a central library, now serves up to 420 pupils.

Gt Whelnetham CofE Primary School, beside St Thomas a Becket Church, gained a new hall, servery kitchen, offices, foyer and extended ICT classroom, along with improved parking and approach. A shallow pitched roof with a tall clerestory window, clad in white render and cedar, acts as a landmark beacon, while a canopy and super-graphics mark the new entrance.

This first phase of a new primary school for 150 pupils, including a twelve-place provision for children with complex learning difficulties, was built quickly using off-site construction on a former airfield. Organised as pavilions around a light-filled central street, with a white-rendered hall, sedum roofs and child-designed outdoor spaces, it meets children’s physical and emotional needs under the mantra “a place to play is a place to learn”.

This primary school at Grange Farm opened in 2001 as a 210-place “modern barn” with cedar cladding, sedum roofs and a glazed clerestory beacon, built around an ancient oak and its resident barn owl. A later extension expanded it to a 420-pupil two-form entry school with a nursery and playgroup, while the school stayed live and a first floor play deck was added.

The first phase of this new community primary school in Rendlesham provides two floors of accommodation for 210 pupils, a 25-place nursery and an independent Children’s Centre, on a cleared site at the heart of the village. Tall pilotis, a coloured glass entrance screen, passive ventilation chimneys, brise soleil and a biomass boiler give the building a distinct identity and a sustainable, healthy environment for children and staff.