A ground-breaking ceremony has moved the expansion of a Wallingford nursery school a step closer, prompting the chair of the local council to declare “provision will be good”.
St Nicholas CE Infant School is scheduled to be leaving its current site just off St Nicholas Road in September 2026 with its new location to be on the Highcroft housing estate, a 555-home development currently being built near Wantage Road by Berkeley.
As well as upgrading its facilities, the move will also allow the school to expand from a purely nursery (ages three to seven) to primary (ages three to eleven) institution in a boost to local education provision.
Overcrowding in education has been a hot topic in Oxfordshire in recent months with this paper reporting that around eight per cent of schools in the county are currently above intended capacity.
The chair of the South Oxfordshire District Council Katharine Keats-Rohan said she was confident “primary provision will be good” with construction beginning at St Nicholas’ new site alongside the expansion of Fir Tree Junior School into a full primary institution as well.
The Liberal Democrat added that “the secondary school has recently been expanded” and that “provision is reviewed regularly by the county council”.
READ MORE: Number of overcrowded Oxfordshire schools revealed
The ceremony at the construction site happened on Wednesday May 14, with kids from the current infant school turning up to watch.
Headteacher of St Nicholas, Amy King, said: “It’s fantastic for the children to have the opportunity to visit the site and to see our new school being built.”
In addition, she expressed a hope that this wouldn’t be their last visit and that they would all be able to “see how the build progresses”.
She added: “The plan for the new school has been in development for a long time and so it’s really exciting to see it start to take shape and to have had so much involvement in planning what it will offer the children.”
Wallingford has been a hub for housing development over the past few years, with the Highcroft scheme not even Berkeley’s only local project.
READ MORE: Field closed as next phase of Wallingford development begins
They are also creating the 502-home Winterbrook Meadows estate in the south of the town, the third phase of which begun construction in March.
With these new homes there has been a focus on expanding education provision and the St Nicholas scheme is a joint project with Fir Tree Junior School.
Though Fir Tree will remain on site, it will begin accepting reception and nursery students from September 2026, with new and upgraded early years facilities to help cope with the added capacity.
