The £2.2 million centre has been funded by the Big Lottery Fund, West Middlesbrough Neighbourhood Trust, Acklam Grange School, and Middlesbrough Council. It’s a “dual-use” facility for both the school and the community in Acklam and the rest of West Middlesbrough.
Features include a fully equipped sports hall, fitness studio, community rooms and offices and an inclusion and support centre for school and community use.
The centre complements the school’s sports fields and facilities during the day, while on evenings and weekends, it is open to sports clubs, community organisations and other groups.
The Inclusion Centre provides facilities to ensure that excluded pupils remain in a mainstream environment, and tackles the issue of disaffection by providing training and guidance for both pupils and their families within school and after hours.
The project deals with problems of low attendance and high exclusion rates of West Middlesbrough children. It also aims to drive up educational achievement with many pupils attaining higher levels of qualification than in previous years. The inclusion project tackles adult education issues in the West Middlesbrough area and aims to improve the job prospects of the whole community.
The project is designed to tackle health problems by providing a location for health related physical activity. There is a strong emphasis on instilling the need for physical activity and exercise in the young WMNT population and consequently having a longer-term impact in reducing illness due to obesity, smoking and other health conditions.
Six out of ten children of secondary school age in West Middlesbrough go to Acklam Grange so this new facility is a real boost for their health and education, right on their own doorstep.
Families from the WMNT area can get reduced membership to the new leisure facilities and subsidised rates to use the centre.