The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and Lend Lease have released new images of a world-class education campus to be built within the Athletes Village. Planning permission has now been secured for the development which includes state-of-the-art facilities for pupils and the wider local community.

Athletes Village, which lies adjacent to the Olympic Park and Stratford City sites, will accommodate athletes during the 2012 Games and will leave the legacy of thousands of new homes, parks, and community facilities after 2012. At the heart of the community facilities to be left in legacy will be Chobham Academy – a world-class new education campus. The Academy is scheduled to open in September 2013 and will offer:

 

• Spaces for 1,800 students between the ages of three and 19
• Nursery, primary and secondary schools, including a sixth-form with adult learning facilities
• The Academy will specialise in Performing Arts and English with a focus on sports excellence within the context of the world-class new sporting venues in the Olympic Park
• A comprehensive lifelong learning programme to meet the needs of existing local communities and the new communities that will develop in the area after 2012
• Day Care Facilities for children from 0 -5 years old, located on the school site, and fully integrated into the nursery and lower school
• A community arts complex for both the school and the community
• A Civic Hub, available for residents to use for social activities, meetings, gatherings and leisure pursuits
• A sports facility for the Academy and the community

Lend Lease CEO Dan Labbad, said:

“Chobham Academy is an essential element of the Village that will contribute to ensuring the ongoing regeneration of the area beyond the Games. Complete with state-of-the-art facilities it will play a key role in creating a mixed, diverse and more sustainable community, with education at its core.”

ODA Chief Executive David Higgins said:

“Chobham Academy will be a world-class development and puts an educational legacy at the heart of our regeneration ambitions for east London. The Olympic Village will create thousands of new homes for Londoners and the Academy will be at the heart of the new facilities we are building to serve new and existing communities for generations to come.”

Schools Minister Jim Knight said:

"After the Games are over I want the Olympic values of excellence and discipline to reverberate in the institutions left behind. Like those great Olympic and Paralympic athletes, pupils at this new state of the art academy should be inspired by those values to be the best they can and I'm confident they will be."

Chobham Academy is being developed by Lend Lease and the ODA in partnership with the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the London Borough of Newham, the London Borough of Waltham Forest, and the Learning & Skills Council London East. The Academy will be part of the Government’s National Academy Programme and will be run by a not-for-profit Registered Charitable Trust. The Academy will be revenue funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Planning permission for Chobham Academy has now been secured and construction work is due to start on site later this summer. The Academy will be built at the northern end of the Village site and will initially be used during the 2012 Games as the main Village operations centre including team management, communications and Village operations. After the Games, the Academy is scheduled to open for the school term in September 2013.

Construction work across the rest of the Athletes Village development is well-underway with the first residential buildings in the Village starting to rise out of the ground.