This is the first glimpse of how Stockport’s ‘modern, fresh and undisputedly contemporary’ new £17m special school could look. Dubbed Pear Tree Academy, the secondary school includes places for up to 133 pupils with profound, severe and multiple learning difficulties, as well as those with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).
Plans for the ‘much-needed’ specialist facility - to be built on the vacant former Orrishmere Primary School site, in Cheadle Hulme - have now been submitted by Spatial Initiative Ltd, on behalf of the Department for Education. It comes after the council successfully bid for government cash to create a new SEN (Special Educational Needs) school in the borough.
While funded by the government, the academy will be a ‘free school’ run by Prospere Learning Trust, which has four other schools in south Manchester. Planning documents say the design of the school brings a ‘modern, fresh and undisputedly contemporary approach’, which would ‘enhance the site and breathe a breath of fresh air into the site which has fallen into a state of disrepair in recent years’.
