BY Meera Majithia
meera@asianexpress.co.uk

A SCHOOL in Beeston has been given a significant boost after receiving £20m as part of the city’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.
Cockburn College of Arts has been given a complete makeover with the grant which was awarded as part of Leeds’ £250m BSF programme.
Chris Edwards, chief executive of Education Leeds, conducting the official opening honours of the school on Thursday, December 8, unveiled a host of brand new facilities including a storey atrium complete with dining room, sports facilities, a fitness studio and open arts spaces.
Other new features at the school include four laboratories with specialist equipment and four unique flexible rooms with demonstration benches on one floor; maths rooms and ICT and business suites with state-of-the-art computer equipment on another; and modern foreign language rooms on the next.
David Gurney, headteacher at Cockburn College of Arts, said: “These impressive new facilities will help Cockburn to continue to improve results, develop the skills of the next generation and fulfil its central role within the local community. Our pupils are very impressed with the modern school buildings they are now learning in and are already benefiting from using them."
Habib Khan, business development manager at the Hamara Centre in Beeston, said: “I think this development is fantastic for the area. Beeston has been criticised over the years and it’s about time they invested something back into the place.
“We work in collaboration with many of the schools in the area and it is important and good to have this sort of investment which will benefit the children and the wider community.”
Cockburn has specialist arts college status and its theatre will be the venue for a performance of West Side Story by the school’s young people.
Chris Edwards, chief executive of Education Leeds, said: “New school buildings and facilities give a huge boost to whole communities and we have already seen this at Cockburn. These new facilities will ensure that thousands of young people in Beeston can learn and develop to their potential for many years to come.”

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