New £1.3M sport hall is 'life changing' for village school

The impressive facility at Waltham CE Primary School is used for assemblies, lunch breaks and dance classes, as well as games and PE.

It means the children no longer have to walk along the busy A607 to hold PE sessions and other communal activities in the village hall.

As she gave us a tour of the sports hall this morning (Monday), head Hollie Geeson told the Melton Times: “It’s life changing for the school, to be honest.

"We’ve gone from having to move tables so we can hold assemblies in cramped classrooms to being able to hold them in this lovely space.

"We actually had separate assemblies for different groups because we couldn’t all fit in one room but now all the children can be together.

"It also means we can have full PE sessions rather than having to walk 10 minutes to the village hall and 10 minutes back again.

"The children no longer have to walk along the A607 as well when we would often get wet going to the village hall.”

The sports hall, which has been built on land to the rear of the school, was paid for largely from Section 106 developer contributions relating to new housing developments in Waltham-on-the-Wolds.

It’s a brilliant addition to the grade two listed school, where children have been taught since 1844 and which now has a record number of 96 pupils enrolled.

Around 40 children at the adjacent pre-school will also use the hall for activities and it will also be opened up to local community groups.

Hollie added: “It’s a real luxury for a small school to have a real beautiful hall space like this.

"All the local primary schools don’t have their own hall so we feel really lucky.”

One of the pupils, Billie, said: “We are very lucky we don’t have to walk to the village hall for PE anymore.”

And another, Isaac, commented: “I like it because we can eat lunch with all our friends now because everyone can eat in the hall together.”