A RAFT of improvements are planned at a school in York.

The move at Danesgate Community forms part of a £2.7 million scheme to improve facilities at this and Applefields School announced earlier this year.

Work at Danesgate is set to cost £1.9 million and will take place in 2022, with completion due next September.

City of York Council has begun the planning process for the scheme at the school at Fulford Cross.

The planning application seeks approval for a single storey extension to its pupil support building. The existing coach house would be demolished and a single storey building with a flat roof would be put up instead.

The upgrade also includes an infill extension to the Bridge Centre and the erection of a timber frame animal house, a new patio deck for the Skill Centre, plus extra disabled parking spaces in the car park and lay by within the school boundary fence. A new boundary fence to the playing field would also be erected.

A report prepared as part of the application said: “The number of children with Social and Emotional Mental Health (SEMH) needs is increasing across the UK.

“York has seen a significant increase alongside an increased number of children and young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).”

The report continued: “Adaptations to the Danesgate site is needed to ensure the site is better able to offer specialist education for children and young people with SEMH as their primary need.”

Such works will help deliver this by allowing the school to implement a formal school day, curriculum and group delivery model.

It would also be able to adapt the teaching areas to allow for an increase in bespoke needs and creating smaller teaching areas, intervention areas and additional breakout spaces.

The report says it is not intended that the pupil numbers will increase, the scheme is to make better use of the existing facilities and make them more suitable to the needs of the pupils.

Changes outlined in the report also include the extension of the Pupil Support Centre to form the gym and music room.

The single storey extension will provide an annexe to the main hall for fixed gym equipment. The music room would allow the for playing instruments and the provision of sensory

equipment relocated from the adjacent classrooms.

The application also said internal alterations to various classrooms would construct break out spaces for one to ones and smaller teaching groups. Infilling the existing courtyard to provide additional teaching space that had been reduced with the addition of the break out spaces in the classrooms.

The council has yet to determine the application.