Ashton Keynes primary school has this year undergone a large building project to transform the Victorian buildings and to remove the three temporary mobile classrooms which have been gently decaying for about 30 years.

Wiltshire Council are paying for the three new classrooms and the school community have taken the opportunity to build at the same time a large, multi-purpose learning hub at the heart of the school which ties the new and old buildings together and gives much needed modern space for a huge variety of activities, both teaching and extra curricula. 

The building work was completed just before the start of the new academic year.

The Learning Hub and new classrooms gives the premises to match the school’s learning performance.

Ashton Keynes came 212 in the entire country in the Sunday Times Primary School rankings 2019, based on academic results.

The community fundraising team have to raise £110,000 to pay for the construction and kit out of the Learning Hub.

A spokesman for the school said: “Despite the challenges of Covid-19, which has meant that most of our planned fundraising events could not take place, we have raised £90,000 already this year.

“This has been achieved by a wide range of small lockdown challenges by young children and families, from sailing the distance of the Channel around a lake, to running a marathon over 24 days and cycling to Cardiff over 4 days, to litter picking along local roads.

"We’ve sold named bricks in the build, had a driveway sale after all those lock-down clear-outs (51 stalls in the village), sold artist maps of the village and much more, all socially distanced!

“One family has made and sold funky face masks and their son Ben, who was at the school, has raised money by completing his first ever 5k. 

“Ben has very fond memories of his time at Ashton Keynes school. However, he spent lots of hours working with his TA in a corridor due to lack of space. The Learning Hub would have been brilliant for Ben if it had been available to him during his time there.”

More details about the Learning Hub project and other events the school is hoping to hold can be found on the website: bit.ly/3cbgZu3

The school has also had a huge number of generous donations from the local community and free donations of materials from local building companies such as Moreton Cullimore, Monier Redland and Aggregate Industries which has reduced the build cost significantly.

Over the weekend of September 26, 12 parents (including six who were meant to run the cancelled Paris Marathon in April) will be running a 24-hour relay around the village through day and night to raise money for the Learning Hub.

They have asked children and adults in the community to support them and run or walk as many 1.5 mile laps as possible to see how many laps and miles can be achieved.

A school spokesman said: “This is an organised sporting event (therefore exempt from the ‘Rule of six)’, but they are still being very cautious, with staggered (age-specific) start times, bubbles of six runners and social distancing at the fore.”

For those who would like to donate please go to bit.ly/3mB08FS