Bingham Primary School marked its official Grand Opening on Monday 21st November 2022 with a surprise guest appearance from Double Olympian Becky Downie!
The new £6.3m school in Nottinghamshire, has been designed by Arc Partnership – a joint venture between Nottinghamshire County Council and SCAPE. Arc also project managed the construction through its delivery partner Morgan Sindall Construction.
The one-storey 1,405sq. ft school features seven classrooms, a multi-use games area (MUGA), playground and a new hall, which doubles up as a dining and indoor sports hall. The building is highly self-efficient with air source heat pumps, high-efficiency lighting and two electric vehicle charging stations.
Headteacher, Gayle Ellis, began the mornings celebrations playing a time-lapse film to the children of the school being built. She then thanked all involved in the process of the build.
Mrs Ellis then went on to discuss with the children about the school’s ethos: ‘Bingham belief’ – “If I believe in myself and I work hard and don’t give up, I can achieve anything.”
The assembly theme that morning was all about local Olympian Becky Downie. The children watched a film of Becky winning Silver at the World Championships, they all clapped when her scores came up on the screen. Mrs Ellis then asked the children if they thought that Becky had the ‘Bingham belief’, the children began to raise their hands when Mrs Ellis said, ‘Well, shall we ask her?’ And to everyone’s surprise, Becky Downie walked into the school hall! The children were cheering and whooping, it was a wonderful surprise!
Gayle Ellis, Bingham Primary School Headteacher, said: “It was an absolute pleasure today to welcome so many people into our school who have all been a part of creating what I believe is a very special primary school for this new community. The pupils were thrilled to meet Becky Downie. She spoke with all the children and visited their classes individually so that they could see her medals up close. It has been a wonderful morning.”
Becky Downie, Double Olympian & World Silver Medalist, unveiled the ‘Grand Opening’ plaque: “It was an honour to be asked to officially open Bingham Primary School today. The school had such a lovely vibe of happy enthusiastic children and extremely committed staff. It’ll be really exciting to follow the schools progress over the years to come.”