Bingham Primary School marked its official Grand Opening on Monday 21st November 2022 with a surprise guest appearance from Double Olympian Becky Downie!
The new £6.3m school in Nottinghamshire, has been designed by Arc Partnership – a joint venture between Nottinghamshire County Council and SCAPE. Arc also project managed the construction through its delivery partner Morgan Sindall Construction.
The one-storey 1,405 sq. ft school features seven classrooms, a multi-use games area (MUGA), playground and a new hall, which doubles up as a dining and indoor sports hall. The building is highly self-efficient with air source heat pumps, high-efficiency lighting and two electric vehicle charging stations.
Headteacher, Gayle Ellis, began the mornings celebrations playing a time-lapse film to the children of the school being built. She then thanked all involved in the process of the build – Nottinghamshire County Council, Arc Partnership, Scape Group, Morgan Sindall, and C.I.T Academies.
Mrs Ellis then went on to discuss with the children about the school’s ethos: ‘BINGHAM BELIEF’ – “If I believe in myself and I work hard and don’t give up, I can achieve anything.”
The assembly theme that morning was all about local Olympian Becky Downie. The children watched a film of Becky winning Silver at the World Championships, they all clapped when her scores came up on the screen. Mrs Ellis then asked the children if they thought that Becky had the ‘BINGHAM BELIEF’, the children began to raise their hands when Mrs Ellis said, ‘Well, shall we ask her?’ And to everyone’s surprise, Becky Downie walked into the school hall! The children were cheering and whooping, it was a wonderful surprise!
Gayle Ellis, Bingham Primary School Headteacher, said:
“It was an absolute pleasure today to welcome so many people into our school who have all been a part of creating what I believe is a very special primary school for this new community. The pupils were thrilled to meet Becky Downie. She spoke with all the children and visited their classes individually so that they could see her medals up close. It has been a wonderful morning.”
Becky Downie, Double Olympian & World Silver Medalist, unveiled the ‘Grand Opening’ plaque:
“It was an honour to be asked to officially open Bingham Primary School today. The school had such a lovely vibe of happy enthusiastic children and extremely committed staff. It’ll be really exciting to follow the schools progress over the years to come.”
Councillor Tracey Taylor – Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, helped the nursery and reception class children fill a time-capsule to celebrate:
“I was delighted to join pupils, staff and partners at the opening of this wonderful new primary school in Bingham.
I enjoyed helping the younger pupils put a time-capsule together and see their faces light up when Double Olympian Becky Downie came into the assembly hall with her medals.
Bingham Primary School is the latest to join the new schools’ estate in Nottinghamshire, one which I’m proud to say sees 9 out of 10 schools across the county rated good or outstanding. A good education gives children and young people a solid start in life which leads to a whole range of options later in life.”
Cllr Taylor added that over the last five years more than 2,700 places have been created at schools across Nottinghamshire.
Pictured – main photograph:
Back row: Asaad Raoof – Head of Design at ARC Partnership, Steven Hawkins – Senior Pupil Place Planning Practitioner at Nottinghamshire County Council, Aaron Beattie – Head of Major Projects at ARC, Thomas Hunt – Project Manager at Morgan Sindall, Martin Pettitt – ARC, Phil Mundell – ARC, Cllr Keith Girling – Cabinet Chairman of Economic Development.
Middle row: Sara Williams – Head of pre-construction at ARC, Amanda Bourne – Property Commissioner for Nottinghamshire County Council, Gayle Ellis – Headteacher at Bingham Primary School.
Front row: Bingham Primary School pupils with Becky Downie.
