The secondary school teaches deaf children from Bristol and beyondHow the new Elmfield Secondary School could look(Image: Bristol City Council)

A Bristol school for deaf children will soon relocate to a larger site as its pupil numbers are increasing. The secondary part of Elmfield School for Deaf Children is based in Eastville but its classrooms are becoming too small, so Bristol City Council is relocating the school to Southmead instead.

The plans were approved by councillors on the children and young people policy committee on Thursday, May 8. The school educates children aged three to 16 years old and is split across two sites, with a new-build primary site and an aged secondary site which has faced challenges.

At the moment, secondary students are taught in a building on a site shared with Fairfield High School. But they will move over to the nearby Badock’s Wood Academy instead, where teaching will be consolidated into one building, freeing up another building for the secondary school.

Vik Verma, director of education, said: “The current building isn’t suitable, so we can’t do nothing. The alternatives wouldn’t have arrived fast enough either, so this was considered the best scheme despite it being a significant investment.

“But we took some comfort knowing that this will be the long-term home for the secondary. Language acquisition and communication skills can be affected by deafness, so the setting that we have required has to be both sufficient in terms of size and also the type of facility that’s available.”

The relocation is expected to cost £7,214,000, funded by a grant from the Department for Education. The current classrooms are small and no longer enough for the pupil numbers at Elmfield. The school is unable to offer breakout spaces, intervention rooms or staff planning spaces.

There are currently 29 students at the secondary, expected to rise to 48 this September. As well as from Bristol, pupils also come from surrounding council areas where there are no specialist deaf schools.

The demand for mainstream school places is falling across Bristol in primary schools, as fewer children are being born in the city and families are driven away by high housing costs. However the demand for specialist places is rising, with a range of specialist educational needs among some children.