Students help to plant 300 trees on new Horsham school site

The school - being built on land north of Horsham off Rusper Road - is due to open in December.

Ten students from the school, which is currently sited in temporary accommodation in Hurst Road, planted the trees which were awarded as part of a donation of 420 saplings by The Woodland Trust.

The trees are a mixture of native woodland varieties including willow, hazel, birch, oak, dog rose, hawthorn, hazel, crab apple and dogwood.

The remaining 120 trees will be planted either at Bohunt Horsham or at one or several of the other eight schools across the Bohunt Education Trust family.

Also at the tree-plangting ceremony were Bohunt Horsham headteacher Georgette Ayling, and Bohunt Education Trust director Phil Avery who were given a tour of the site by Tim Wates, director of the Wates Group and project manager Sam Bushill.

A spokesperson for Bohunt said: “The building project is making excellent progress: light has been maximised throughout the classrooms and the library, especially, is flooded with light from a wall of windows – part of the ingenious design by LSI Architects.”

When complete, the new school will grow to a roll of 1,670 students, aged 2-16, including a nursery and primary school - due to open in 2023.

The school opened in temporary accommodation in Hurst Road in September 2019 with 120 students in Year 7,

It now has 240 students in Years 7 and 8 and another year group of over 200 students will join this September.

In order to accommodate the additional students, from September until the move in December,the school has secured eight extra classrooms, based on the Youth Club car park next to the current temporary site.