Monmouthshire’s Vice Chairman Councillor Maureen Powell opened the county’s first learning plaza at Caldicot’s Castle Park Primary School on Friday, 14th October 2011 at 10am.
The new learning plaza for 60 students provides a flexible and technologically advanced multi-functional space enabling Castle Park to deliver personalised education and prepare children for transition to secondary school. The plaza will help promote 21st Century learning, life skills and future employment. Constructed with sustainability in mind the building is highly insulated and employs panels of local straw for the walls, reducing the need for heating. Photovoltaic panels have been installed to generate power while children enjoy high levels of natural daylight and ventilation.
Governors and staff as well as local MP Jessica Morden, Assembly Member John Griffiths, county councillors and representatives from Monmouthshire County Council, the Welsh Government and construction partners Wilmott Dixon attended the opening with a morning of celebration. Pupils from the school gave a musical performance and shared their experiences of the new learning plaza. The event concluded with the planting of a tree by Councillor Maureen Powell.
Councillor Powell said: “I’m so pleased to see these twenty first century facilities which enable the pupils to widen their education in a magnificent purpose-built plaza.”
Councillor Liz Hacket Pain, Monmouthshire’s cabinet member for Children, Young People and Learning added: “The new plaza with its lessons without walls conjures up images of boundless learning without constraint. I wish all pupils well for the future”.
