School expansion

Architect’s images of what the new building will look like.

14th October 2024

School expansion and our new Park Avenue site

To the whole Hatton community,

I am pleased to be able to tell you that the target date for planning permission for our new, additional site, at Park Avenue in Ilford was last week. An update should be available soon. The local authority will then start the process of appointing a contractor who will turn the site into a wonderful school for Hatton pupils.

The local authority is creating more spaces for SEND pupils in the borough, which are urgently needed. This is an exciting time for us all. This will see Hatton grow from a school of 191 pupils to a school with 250 pupils. To do this we will need more space and the council are investing in us and our pupils by refurbishing the old Park School for Girls to provide more space. This will create a beautiful new building that will become Hatton Upper School, our current site at Roding Lane South will be our lower school site.

We are working with the team at the local authority to agree how quickly our numbers grow and which year groups of pupils and staff will move across to the new building. Our aim to involve everyone as much as possible, keeping you informed of plans and preparing everyone, as best we can, for the changes that will take place in September 2025.

At parent’s evening next half term we will have plans available, to give families first impressions about what the upper school will look like. This term we will be planning staff structure and organisation for the new, expanded school.

Early next term we will hold our first parents’ meeting. By then we will be able to share how we are planning for the school growth and how the changes will affect different year groups of pupils. We want these to be accessible and will be consulting on what times are good for families to attend meetings and plan to hold these in person and online.

We will keep staff up to date of developments through our bulletin, briefings and our whole school meetings. The local authority, school and unions will also meet regularly to make sure everyone is informed and views are communicated.

We will be adding a page to our website to post regular updates, we plan for this to also have a ‘frequently asked questions’ section. We will post responses to common questions and concerns so that everyone can see them.

These changes will bring lots of benefits for current and future Hatton pupils. We also realise that these changes will cause some worry and raise questions for others. Please be assured leaders here at Hatton and in the team at Redbridge are committed to keeping everyone informed, involved and up to date as the plans progress.

Regards,

Chris Smaling
Headteacher