Olive Manchester Primary School in Cheetham Hill, Manchester will accommodate 420 pupils (age 4 -11) for Star Academies. Star Academies is a mixed Multi-Academy Trust that runs a diverse network of primary and secondary schools across Lancashire, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, the Midlands and London. The design incorporates the Trust’s Muslim faith ethos and promotes a welcoming, calm, safe environment for all users.

School budgets are under ever increasing pressure so delivering a robustly detailed scheme was imperative to prolong life expectancy and reduce maintenance costs. The use of brick not only provides a robust building, they relate to the domestic vernacular context of the local area which was well received by the Planning Committee and neighbours. Sustainable features, natural daylight and ventilation were optimised to create a conducive learning environment that is efficient for the Trust to run.

As with all our schools, we developed a bespoke design to safeguard the children and staff taking into consideration how the Trust want to operate their sites. This was of particular importance as access to the batting enclosure on site would be offered for community use. The layering of spaces: public, invited and private, supporting the school’s desire to be an integral part of the community whilst maintaining control of access.

The scheme accounts for Greater Manchester’s strategy to deliver Biodiversity Net Gain and the Department for Education’s (DFE’s) Urban Green Factor target. Our scheme betters the DFE’s requirement and leaves biodiversity in a better state than it did existing. The landscaping design works in harmony with its natural surroundings, acting as a physical and acoustic barrier as well as encouraging biodiversity and promoting outdoor learning of the local flora and fauna.

The facility was the first primary school developed within Manchester’s inner ring road in two decades.