The Vision for a school
Heartlands High School is a new 8 form entry community school in Haringey, North London. It has a specialism in performing arts and media and is currently oversubscribed. The ASD faculty runs alongside the mainstream school.
The number of students receiving free school meals is almost double the national average. The number of students from minority ethnic backgrounds is 88% and the number of students with English as a second language is more than 4 times the national average.
Imagining a school
It is a rare treat for architects to design a new secondary school, particularly on a central London site. TP Bennett are architects who have worked with Haringey on the refurbishment and extension of a number of existing schools and were given the opportunity to be involved in the creation of Heartlands High. Haringey has a growing population and its secondary schools were oversubscribed, leading to the need for additional school places to be created. The new school would need to accommodate 8 mainstream forms of entry as well as autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) provision for 25 students.