North Halifax Grammar: New £6million sports hall for school

This comes after many years of trying to secure funding, and is a much- needed expansion and enhancement of the school’s on-site sports facilities. 

It is anticipated that this will, for the first time, fully do justice to the wide range of sporting activities provided in the curriculum, and the many teams and individuals who successfully represent the school at local and county level. 

The multi-use sports hall will also feature a mini-gym and dance studio. A number of rooms will also be incorporated into the building to be used as classrooms during the school day, and available as conference/function rooms for use by the public at other times.

The £2.9m comes on top of other recent successful bids for extra government funding, amounting to a grand total of £6m. 

This has enabled the school to improve its buildings in a number of ways, including the replacement of roofs and windows, which has had a massive practical and aesthetic impact.

These developments put together constitute a very real transformation to the school site and are very timely as their completion will coincide with an increase to the school’s year seven intake in September 2017.

Taking on coast to coast

Twenty eight students from years nine and 10, along with five teachers, are taking on the challenge of cycling coast to coast following the Way of the Roses route.

The official route is 170 miles long, but a few extra miles will be required to find the groups camping accommodation each evening: as a result the route will total 182 miles.

The team from NHGS are taking five days to complete the 182 miles and have managed to secure a couple of nights free camping accommodation from some very generous organisations.

The route starts in Morecambe and ends in Bridlington. It goes through some beautiful parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. There are some very hilly sections of the route and it passes through the picturesque Yorkshire Dales towns of Settle and Pateley Bridge.

The highest elevation point on the ride is Greenhow Hill just before the drop down into Pateley Bridge which tops out at about 1400ft. There are also quite a few short sharp and very steep climbs during the first half of the trip.

NHGS has a proud tradition of raising its own finances for resources, facilities and building development.

With the current state of education funding this is another example of students showing determination to and resourcefulness to support the school in a way that is going to take them on an exciting adventure.

If you would like to support the students on their ride and help the school raise funds you can donate by visiting http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/nhgs