(Mar 2010) The Newham BSF Rokeby School project was topped out yesterday by Councillor the Revd Quintin Peppiatt, the London Borough of Newham’s executive member for children and young people.  

Guests from the Local Education Partnership, Newham Transformation Partnership, Partnerships for Schools, London Thames Gateway and Laing O’Rourke gathered in the new Sports Hall to celebrate the final piece of concrete being poured.

Fittingly, the celebrations at Rokeby come at the same time as the Newham BSF programme receives confirmation of funding for a further ten schools as part of the Wave 5 school developments. Following on from the four schools currently under construction, Construction South will start work on another school this year and another seven schools in 2011.

Mark Richardson, Business Leader for Laing O'Rourke Construction South, told the guests gathered at Rokeby, “the celebrations here today demonstrate the success of the partnering arrangements between Laing O’Rourke and all of the organisations involved with the Newham BSF programme.”  

On completion in September, the new 900-place Rokeby School will have a six court sports hall, a fitness suite, an outdoor fitness trail and a floodlit all-weather pitch. Classrooms have also been designed in such a way that the physical space can be expanded or reduced according to the size of a class and will feature a high-tech information technology system to accommodate an increased number of computers and laptops.  

“The topping out marks an important milestone for the Rokeby School project as well as the rest of the Newham BSF team,” said Project Leader David George. “I’d like to thank everyone on the team for all of their hard work.”