Our Facilities at Walton Hall Academy
At Walton Hall we maximise the facilities we have on site to provide outstanding opportunities for our students. We are always seeking opportunities to innovate and add value to our provision.
Oasis Centre
The Oasis centre is a small bespoke unit for students who find the larger and busier environment of the main school building a challenge. It is a haven of highly staffed and bespoke individual curriculum pathways with a mission to builds bridges back into education for students who have had additional challenges.
Oasis Outreach
The Oasis staff team run a programme of inclusion offering friendship groups and other activities that impact across the school and enable development of student’s social, emotional and mental health.
Farm
The farm has developed over many years and provides a therapeutic and educational environment to support all areas of the curriculum. FRANC is our farm and nature classroom, located beside the small animal care unit and is a study centre for BTEC and enrichment animal care courses.
We have a wide range of animals from Ginger – the farm cat, to a sheep, pigmy goats, small mammals, poultry and an African Giant Leopard tortoise. A symbol of our school is the free range Peafowl that wander through the grounds!
Garden Centre
We are extremely fortunate to have the Shaw Trust garden centre on site. This is a fully commercial centre with huge poly tunnels and a retail area. This resource is available for our all students across the school and it supports our science and horticulture curriculums. Students in KS4 and 5 have the opportunity to select horticulture as a vocational option and through work in the garden centre and around the extensive school grounds they can achieve a BTEC Entry Level 3 or Level 1 in Land-based studies. Students can also access the garden centre as an internal work experience placement.
Motor Vehicle Technology
Located in the Key Stage 4 block, we have a superb motor vehicle workshop with a car ramp, wheel changing and balancing facilities, a green powered racing car and many quad and motorbikes. These facilities and equipment are fully utilised throughout our KS4 and 5 vocational option curriculum where students complete courses in Motor Vehicle Road Control, Motor Vehicle maintenance, checking and maintaining a cars tyre pressure and tread depth and identification of external and internal car parts.
Forest School
Utilising our amazing grounds, we have established a forest school area and deliver the subject across key stage 3 and in residence. A forest school curriculum helps to develop communication and interaction skills, social, emotional and mental health, team work and co-operation skills. We are able to extend this opportunity in key stages 4 and 5 for students with a particular interest in this area who work alongside our coppicing expert on a social forestry programme.
Sensory Rooms and Sensory Garden
Located in Key Stages 3 and 4 are sensory rooms that are widely used by our students. Students in our seekers pathway access this room regularly to provide sensory interventions to individuals or small groups of students as well as to develop communication and interaction through Tac-Pac sessions.
A sensory garden trail has been developed alongside the woods and farm area with water play, wind chimes and other sensory activities and walks. All students across the school have access to this facility.
Media and Recording Studio
Media and music technology are popular vocational options for students in Key Stage 4 and 5 and we therefore have a bespoke media room and a professional recording studio for student use and band practice located within the Old Hall. Students use these facilities and the software available to produce films and animations and to produce and record music to evidence their learning.
Outdoor Education Residential Opportunities
The academy philosophy is very much centred on holistic provision and therefore we offer opportunities not only to access residence on site but also run visits to outdoor Education Centres such as PGL, the Calvert Trust and Bendrig in the Lake District and an annual Tall Ship Expedition.
The Tall Ship Expedition uses the Queen Galadriel and students live on board for the week sailing as far as France, the Channel Islands and around the south coast of the UK.
Students from Walton Hall have also visited Cornwall, Ghana, Jersey, Dublin and one student has even attended a global IT challenge in India!