Portreath new building

We had a fantastic opening ceremony for our new building: The Orchard.

People involved in the build were invited, along with some volunteers and some ex-members of staff including Caroline Thomas, John Whetter and Nicki Finn.

Thanks to Jess Cafe and the school council for organising the event and to Miss Baseley for leading the beautiful singing. I took the opportunity to say thank-you to many people, including: Cornwall Council and Crofty Educational Trust for funding the build, project lead Keith Austin, Kevin McKenna for the plans and Richard White for helping everything get through planning.

I thanked Ian and Dan Hinton from the building company, RAMS for going above and beyond on this project. They were always happy to answer questions from staff and children and let the whole school watch key moments such as the roof being moved into position by the crane.

I thanked the Crofty staff in the finance, procurement, IT and estates teams. My biggest thanks went to Steve Eva, our wonderful estates manager. He has worked tirelessly to make this dream a reality. I thanked the wonderful staff of Portreath for their flexibility during the build, dealing with last minute changes, continuing to teach brilliantly through it all and then moving at lightning speed when it came to moving classrooms.

The children were amazing during the ceremony, their singing was excellent and commented on by our guests and they stood and listened really well. Evelyn, our school ambassador, made a fantastic speech on behalf of all the children.

Ed Rowe (aka Kernow King) then did the honours of cutting the ribbon. The guests were invited into Cherry Class for a cream tea to celebrate, served by our wonderful PTA, which included jam donated kindly by Sisleys.

I am so delighted with the 2 new classrooms because it means we will be able to help more children grow and make a difference in Portreath and the wider world.

Cassie Pamplin