Conversion of a building that was originally a leisure centre with two-storey squash courts into classrooms for Tyndale Community School

Tyndale Community School is another school the Oxford Diocese Academy Trust is responsible for and SWJ Consulting is proud to do a lot of work for the trust.

SWJ Consulting was asked to help with the refurbishment of a building that was originally a leisure centre with two-storey squash courts including a viewing mezzanine and rifle range in the basement. The plans were to change the building into classrooms for Tyndale Community School with a basement store. Creating a new floor on the squash court for new classrooms and converting the rifle range into a corridor and staircase to provide a secondary means of escape.

To compound the challenge of refurbishing the squash courts the access to the building was a narrow walkway which meant we needed to work out where to cut the steels so they could be brought on site easily. We were not able to put in any columns within the squash court to support the new floor as we had no details of the build and did not want to risk puncturing the waterproof layer or DPM, so we had to come up with an alternative scheme to support the walls of the squash court.

Project Team

Client: Tyndale Community School

Contractor: Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust 

A lack of information was the biggest challenge of this project. Unfortunately, no one knew where the as-built information was and so it felt like we had one hand tied behind our backs as we couldn’t complete any noisy investigative work during term time and had to wait for the holidays.

With the advent of Private Approved Inspectors as-built drawings are not necessarily being released and filed for future use, so getting them can be difficult. We would advise all our clients that regardless of what type of inspector they use, they keep a copy of the as-built drawings for future use to save time and energy in the future.  

If you have concerns about your school’s grounds or estates please give us a call on 01993 225085 or email mail@swjconsulting.co.uk. We have extensive experience in the education sector and understand the challenges and sensitivities required to work with these clients.