Elmfield School for Deaf Children

Co-located specialist school for Deaf children with complex needs

Elmfield School for Deaf Children provides specialist education for children from 2 to 16 years of age. The children have a range of profound, severe and moderate levels of deafness. Some children have additional special needs.

The school is split across two sites with Elmfield Primary School situated in the Westbury-On-Trym area of Bristol. Elmfield School has a vision to co-locate their school with a mainstream primary school.

It is proposed that Elmfield School relocate to The Bristol Education Centre (BEC) located in the Horfield area of the city of Bristol as part of a large scale refurbishment of an existing Victorian building that requires part demolition and new build facilities.

The aim is to create a school environment that:

• Enables family support and has street presence for the local community.
• Incorporates wide corridors (to assist with signing) and rounded corners.
• Provides dedicated therapy, speech and language space.
• Enables inclusion of Deaf pupils into mainstream classes and socially at lunch / playtime.
• Provides outdoor play areas with direct access from teaching spaces which are covered and secured.
• Has a central ‘boat space’ enabling flexible learning/teaching depending on a child’s needs, with access to external play areas.

The project is part of a wider proposal to develop and improve the facilities across multiple school sites for both Elmfield School for Deaf Children and Claremont Special School as part of the Bristol City Council Local Education Partnership (LEP). If granted funding by Bristol City Council Committee both will delivered by Stride Treglown and Skanska.