Foxwood 2 SEND Secondary School, Bramcote, Nottinghamshire

Morgan Sindall Construction has started main works on Foxwood 2, a £32 million secondary school for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire. It’s going up on the site of the former Bramcote Park School, which was badly damaged by fire in September 2021 and sat derelict for years before demolition.

The new building expands Foxwood Academy, an existing special school, and adds room for about 150 more pupils aged 11 to 18. The White Hills Park Trust and Foxwood Academy are the clients. New pupils are due to start in January 2028.

Project Scope

The main school is a two-storey building. Noviun Architects designed it, and Gleeds is project manager. Morgan Sindall’s Midlands business is building it, procured through the SCAPE Construction framework, and works are expected to run until winter 2027.

The program goes beyond classrooms. A separate building is set aside for preparation-for-adulthood teaching, where students practice the life skills they’ll need after school. There’s a gym and a café that will be open to students and the public, and the outside works include staff parking, dedicated pick-up and drop-off spaces, a cycle track, a soft play area and outdoor gym equipment.

Pick-up and drop-off isn’t a throwaway line on a SEND school. Many pupils arrive by taxi or minibus, often at the same time, and the site layout has to handle that without a queue onto the road. It tends to drive the whole external plan.

Older Foxwood students will join activities during the build, including bricklaying sessions, to get a look at construction as a career. The school sits within the wider White Hills Park Trust campus, so the contractor is working next to an occupied school.

Why It Matters

England has a SEND places problem. Demand for specialist school places has outrun supply for years, and councils have been paying for long taxi journeys and expensive independent placements to fill the gap. Every new state special school place cuts into that bill, which is why local authorities and academy trusts keep pushing projects like this one through frameworks rather than open tender.

At about £213,000 per added pupil place, the cost looks steep next to a mainstream secondary. It isn’t out of line for special schools, where class sizes are small, therapy and hygiene spaces take up a lot of floor area, and the adulthood building and public café add scope a mainstream job wouldn’t carry.

It’s also a reuse story. A burned-out school site that sat empty for years is getting rebuilt as education space instead of being sold for housing.

Project Team & Details