Colehill First School

Colehill First School

Type	Community School
Headteacher	Andrew S Turrall
Location	Middlehill Road Colehill Wimborne Dorset BH21 2HL  England
Local authority	Dorset
DfE URN	113664
Gender	Coeducational
Ages	4–9
Website	colehillfirst.dorset.sch.uk

Coordinates: 50°48′30″N 1°57′07″W / 50.80826°N 1.95203°W / 50.80826; -1.95203

Colehill First School, originally known as Middlehill School, is an infant school in the village of Colehill, near Wimborne and Poole, along the south coast of Dorset. Open since Victorian times, it educates children from their reception year to year four (ages 4 to 9). It is part of the Queen Elizabeth pyramid of schools which feeds St. Michael's CofE Middle School and Allenbourn Middle School, which in turn feed Queen Elizabeth's School, Wimborne Minster, the local secondary school.

Location and Relocation

The school had for some time been spread across two sites, one across either side of a road. One site, the 'old' site, featured the main building, an old Victorian structure with newer (but by no means new) extensions built around it [1]. This building contained the main offices and staff room, two classrooms and the main hall used for assemblies, special events and gymnastics. A further extension to this building housed the nursery. Three additional classrooms, a library and another hall were contained within five temporary 'huts' (one, a classroom, on the old site, the other four on the new) which remained in place for a number of years.

In the early 2000s, the school advanced its plans to relocate the school in its entirety to the new site. Initially, commencing April 2001. two of the huts on the new site (the hall and one classroom) were removed and replaced with a new building containing a replacement hall and classroom, along with a computer suite. This new building was the centrepiece of the planned new school. At the same time, the hall in the main building on the old site was refurbished into a classroom so that the one hut on the old site would no longer be needed (though ironically this hut later turned out to be the very last part of the old school to be demolished). Incidentally, the same hall had originally been two classrooms many years before. This work was completed in the August 2001.

Despite the old main building being a 141-year-old Victorian structure (built in 1865), it was not considered of high enough quality or historic value to be afforded the protection of having listed status. There was a level of public interest in retaining the Victorian building and incorporating it into whatever usage the old site was put to. It was initially thought that the old site might be put to use for social care purposes, but in August 2004 it was sold through auction to a housing association called Magna Housing Group in order to help pay for the new school building.

Work by Morgan Carey Architects began in April 2004 to construct the rest of the new building on the new site. It was constructed atop what had been the courtyard, which was in the centre of the four temporary huts, and the playground. As it neared completion, the two remaining huts on the new site were removed to make way for a new car park. The new building, due to be finished by 22 October 2004, was finally ready over a month later on 1 December 2004, and at this time the school facilities on the old site were deserted and the whole school became united on one side of the road again after nearly 40 years of waiting [2]. Shortly after the vacation of the building, it became the victim of vandalism, and the windows were boarded up as a result of the glass in nearly all of them being smashed by vandals.

Magna Housing Group submitted a request for planning permission, hoping to demolish the old school building and construct two blocks of flats and a parking area in its place, but they withdrew this request in July 2005. Despite no further request for the development of the site being submitted after this, permission for the demolition of the buildings on the old site was granted, and this commenced at the end of February 2006. The main building was razed entirely by the middle of March, with the lone temporary hut being the final part of the old school to be demolished on 17 March.

Headteachers

• Mrs V A Cox - (unknown date) to July 1995
• Sue Williams - September 1995 to July 2005
• Andrew S Turrall - September 2005 onwards

Ofsted inspections

• November 1996
• February/March 2000 [3]
• September 2005 [4]

External links

• Colehill First School's website
• Colehill Parish Council's document archive