New Bridge wins £6.25m academy sponsor deal

OLDHAM’s Rock Street Centre

AN Oldham school is to oversee a new state-of-the-art £6.25 million town-centre academy that will provide 140 extra places for local autistic children.

Hollinwood’s New Bridge School, one of 39 new academy sponsors across England, will consider education, staffing and funding details for the proposed academy on the council-owned Rock Street Centre site. The school would cater for youngsters aged four to 19 and could create up to 100 jobs.

New Bridge principal Graham Quinn said: “We are delighted to have been selected. It will support the already outstanding provision for children and young people in Oldham.

The Oldham academy is one of four being built in the North-West under the Government’s “Targeted Basic Need” programme. Two are earmarked for Tameside, one for Manchester. All will open in 2015.

The new school will add to Oldham’s existing special needs schools — New Bridge, Kingfisher and Springbrook — and four specialist units in mainstream schools.

New Bridge, which caters for 11 to 19 year-olds, was rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted inspectors in its last report.

Mr Quinn said the new school will meet demand from autistic children who are currently educated outside the borough’s schools. He added: “A number of ideas are on the table and we want a school that is purpose-designed for youngsters with autism.”