Our students walked through the doors of our new £26m Academy building in September 2012.

Photos of the new building

Virtual tour

 

Here we provide an insight into the facilities within the building, the learning environment it will foster, its forward thinking green credentials and its place within the wider community.

 

The Building

The new Academy building is a place of learning that impresses for its architectural design as well as the achievements it will encourage in our students.

Designed to a quality that is consistent with the Brooke Weston Partnership's high standards, it is built on two levels with a central courtyard acting as the main hub to link all areas.

This courtyard features a sky terrace, seating area, and large scale artwork. The circular glass panelled design ensures that light floods into all areas of the inner building and looking out onto this central courtyard is the library and restaurant.

The academic subjects are ordered into a faculty system, with five double height faculties. The faculties have a central study area and are lined by two columns of classrooms. Each classroom has a glass fronted window, providing an openness throughout.

In line with our specialism the Science faculty features two 'super labs' - larger than average laboratories installed with the latest equipment.

Chief architect at Nicholas Hare Architects Ruth Saxton, who led the team that came up with the successful final design, said: "The Academy partnership puts a large emphasis on transparency and visibility and so the faculty system has been designed to enable this.

"We have designed out opportunities for misbehaviour and bullying and using the glass also helps teaching staff to support each other."

The new building also features an impressive 450 seat theatre which sits at the front of the site near to the tree lined entrance.

Students access the building via the front entrance and use a smart card system to swipe through the central reception.

This swipe system acts as an automatic register - a scheme which has proved to be very successful in the other two Brooke Weston academies.

Our sports facilities are also be state of the art, including a sprung timber floor sports hall, two Astroturf pitches and a large sports fields.

 

Green Credentials

The building is set to become the greenest building ever built in the county.

An onsite Geothermal heating system is linked to the building's thermal mass; photovoltaic cells convert solar energy into electricity; data screens display to students and users the energy usage of the building. 

These technologies reduce the need to take energy from the national grid and help the Academy to make huge energy savings compared to the running costs of other academies in the UK.

Jeff Foster, Project Manager at Willmott Dixon Construction, said: "This use of cutting edge technology is going to lead to one of the lowest carbon buildings that we have produced.

"We are using sustainable technologies that are proven in other parts of the world but are not commonly used within this country as yet.  It is the combination of these technologies into one facility that makes for such a unique and exciting design.

"The new Kettering Science Academy building will be one of the lowest carbon buildings that has ever been built in Northamptonshire."

Interesting Fact: The energy produced by the Photo Voltaic cells will be enough to provide the power to light the restaurant.

 

Community Investment

As well as being a state of the art place of learning for our students, the new Academy is an asset to our local community.

Our sporting facilities are open to the public and we have made sure our new design incorporates the option to separate off this area from the main school buildings so that during evenings and weekends it can operate as a stand alone facility, with its own reception area and changing rooms.

 

The Learning Environment

The building has been designed to enhance the learning environment for our students.

We use a faculty system, which means a whole year group can study the same subject at the same time. The Brooke Weston Partnership timetable model is also employed, restructuring the lesson timings so that students move around less during the day. This will minimise disruption to lessons and allow a longer period of study so that subjects can be looked at more in-depth.

The large use of glass within the building means the building is flooded with light, therefore enhancing the study conditions.