Severndale Specialist Academy

Severndale Specialist Academy and Shrewsbury College launched the £1m Futures Centre at London Road at the end of 2014. The Centre provides students with learning difficulties and disabilities with a range of work-related learning activities and the College experience.

This joint venture is the first of its kind in the UK and provides students aged 16-25 with valuable real-life work experience in order to improve their employment prospects. New links are regularly being developed with local employers with a view to providing work placements.

A range of workshops delivered by specialist tutors helps students to create, produce and set up enterprises including ceramics, jewellery, candle making, soap making, textiles and printing. There is also a garden for students to grow a variety of organically grown produce for use in the catering kitchen and café that is open to the general public.

We have provided kitchens to the Academy since 2007. In order to provide the best classroom storage and sink facilities, we worked closely with the Academy to provide an alternative solution to the historically inappropriate units that had been supplied for many years.

Chris Davies, the Principal of Severndale Academy said “When we started planning our new 16-25 provision FUTURES the only kind of its type in the country at this point, the fixtures and fittings were of prime importance. The provision is a work-related series of workshops and classroom provisions.

We worked with the designers at Premiere to create a functional but contemporary look that would be hard-wearing but look different in a school setting. As evidenced in the pictures provided the workshops are functional and effective and provide a contemporary look that has been commented on by all visitors to the centre.

As an academy, we have been delighted with the service provided from design to delivery, and also after some issues with fitting the response and turnaround time for additional materials were exceptional. When our next building program gets to the design stage we will be returning to Premiere Furniture for design and supply.”