First look at state of the art sixth form college

Photo: Laura Wild

The newest sixth form college in the country opens for the first day of teaching on 6 September 2010

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Rochdale’s brand new £26million sixth form college is nearing completion following 14 months of hard work from over 150 workmen.

The site, close to Asda in the town centre will cater for around 500 A-level students when it opens on 6 September.

Rochdale Online reporter Laura Wild visited the country’s newest sixth form today (Thursday 3 June) for a sneak preview of how the work is coming on.

The state of the art sixth form is spread out across five floors; it has modern and stylish classroom facilities as well as industry standard theatre and dance studios.

Aside from the classrooms and the great educational facilities the sixth form will bring to the borough it will also house a Starbucks café with accompanying roof terrace which has delightful views of the borough right across to the pennies.

The building has been ‘future-proofed’ as much as possible with regards to technology and offers IT suites and wireless connectivity throughout the building.

Principal Julian Appleyard is thrilled with the progress he has witnessed since he was appointed in April 2009. He said: “It is really pleasing, everything has come together so well. I have watched the site develop and it is amazing to see how things have changed week by week.”

Mr Appleyard worked closely with the buildings designers to implement things that he believes are necessary for a sixth form, this includes a one-to-one study area on each of the five floors so that students can engage in out of class sessions with tutors.

Over the last year Mr Appleyard has visited almost half of the 95 sixth forms in the country to get an idea of what facilities need to be on offer, which has resulted in ‘only the best’ being provided for the founding students.

John North of Bardsley construction has managed the project from day one, Mr North is a Rochdale man and has worked on other projects in the area including the development of Sandbrook Park, he said: “It is really invigorating to work on a project like this, this is something that will be here for the future and will certainly out live me it gives an identity to Rochdale for the education and the youth of the town.”

Although the progress of the building was hindered by the bad winter weather Mr North is pleased that the work force is on track and is meeting all targets. He has no doubt that the building will be ready to open its doors to the sixth form college's first students in a few months time.

The sixth form will offer 33 A-levels and will focus solely on their delivery, Mr Appleyard said: “We are going to teach A-levels and we are going to do them well.”

Mr Appleyard concluded the buildings tour by saying: “We have raised the bar for Rochdale, hopefully we can improve the chances for young people, their lives and the opportunities they are given.”

The sixth form has taken 1100 applications from 32 schools, the majority from Rochdale and will open to between 450 and 550 year 12 students in September; the sixth form has built with 1000 students in mind.