News
April 2009:
Prospect, April 2009
Prospect Magazine have included the Campaign and our involvement as a case study in an article about parents setting up schools.
“Ahn and Smith set off on their fold-up Brompton bikes -his blue, hers yellow- to re-examine all the sites. At one Ahn saw, on the other side of the road, a vaguely derelict industrical building. It hadn’t been on the council’s list. It was really the large sign outside that caught his eye. It read, in big green letters: ‘London Borough of Camden – To Let.’
(Actually, Je’s bike is the yellow one!)
March 2009:
Us with Frank Dobson
Frank Dobson MP has included us in his yearly report. Here we are having our picture taken with him at Wren Street!
March 2009:
The Camden New Journal published another article about Wren Street:
“Is it Victory in Wren Street for new school campaign? The Town Hall has finally bowed to decades of public pressure and for the first time agreed to work on opening a new school in Holborn. Camden’s schools chief Councillor Andrew Mennear told colleagues on Monday night that council-owned lock-ups in Wren Street could be transformed into a new secondary school. It is the first time the council has departed from its line that there is nowhere south of Euston Road to build one.”
September 2008:
We have revised the study of the Wren Street site to show that although this is a tight site, it is feasible to fit a small school at Wren Street. We presented the document to the SER Working Group.
July 2008
The Camden New Journal Published an article about the Wren Street site:
“Opening soon? Wren Street Community School in Holborn, the secondary comprehensive of choice for families living south of Euston Road. Great idea, say parents in the south of the borough”
May 2008:
The Campaign have presented our Wren Street study to the South of the Euston Road (SER) Working Group. It has transpired that the extent of the Camden-owned site is much larger than we initially were aware of so the site looks much more viable, and the study needs to be revised…
January 2008:
To Let sign at Wren Street
Over the last few months we have been researching into school design guidance, gathering precedent studies from the UK and abroad, and doing a site search within walking distance of the area through both desktop research and by cycling around with our eyes peeled. While on our travels we came upon a site at Wren Street that is Camden-owned. We then carried out a preliminary feasibility study. We compiled all this information into three reports: Potential Sites, School Precedents, and the Study of the Wren Street site, and sent them to the Campaign.
September 2007:
After carrying out a lot of research into school design guidance we wrote a document for the campaign outlining some considerations and opportunities to be taken into account when looking to build a school in a dense city-centre area like the South of Camden.
June 2007:
Over the last couple of weeks we attended all Camden’s BSF public consultations supporting the campaign and getting to know the situation better. We followed this up by writing to the council describing our proposed research project.
May 2007:
We emailed the Campaign, offering to help with architectural research and advice. Then, as it happened, the following day was a campaign meeting which we attended and there
met Emma and Polly and everyone. We offered to carry out feasibility studies and site searches and generally help in any way we can.
Summer 2006:
We signed up to the newsletter of the Holborn and St Pancras Secondary School Campaign. Probably in part because in the back of our minds, there lingered a question: when we have children, where can we send them to school?
Sketch to show Entrance
“Where is my school?”
Secondary School Campaign
with the Holborn and St Pancras Secondary School Campaign (ongoing)
This is a research project to investigate potential options for providing a secondary school in the very south of Camden where there is currently none.
Site Photograph
We have been carrying out research in response to the desire for a secondary school to serve the very south of Camden since 2007. This has involved site searches and a number of site appraisals as well as a preliminary feasibility study for a Council-owned site we uncovered at Wren Street. This study aimed to begin investigations into the potential feasibility of a secondary school on this site including the size of school the site could accommodate and some of the challenges and opportunities that a development would likely involve.
In August 2008, our work was presented to the South of the Euston Road (SER) Working Group – a working group consisting of the Campaign, the Council, and the Department for Children, Schools, and Families, with the aim of working towards a solution to this problem – which led to the Council recently announcing that they would be considering how best to secure the potential use of the Wren Street site for a school in the future. The campaign has also been promised government funding for the new school, provided the council can show demographic need.
Bird's Eye View of Massing and Outdoor Space
Our work has also been published in the Camden New Journal and Prospect magazine helping to raise awareness of the campaign and it’s objectives.
Bird's Eye View of the Wren Street Site