Morgan Sindall’s Glenwood Rise SEND school: design and net-zero notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Morgan Sindall Construction has completed Glenwood Rise, a £6.6m SEND sixth form at Glenwood School in South Benfleet, providing capacity for 40 post-16 students with complex needs. The single-block facility uses a SIPS structural frame with brickwork façade to improve insulation and airtightness, and is designed to be net-zero carbon in operation via roof-mounted PV panels and air source heat pumps. The scheme adds five classrooms, sensory rooms, a catering training centre and a 109-space car park with seven EV chargers, three accessible bays and eight minibus spaces.
Technical Brief
- £6.6m contract let via Essex County Council’s own framework procurement route.
- Glenwood Rise is integrated as an extension to the existing Glenwood School campus.
- New sixth form will open for its first cohort in September following completion.
- Facility configuration includes a dining space, meeting room and multiple specialised sensory rooms.
- External works package delivered vibrant landscaping, small play areas and circulation to the new block.
- Car park layout separates 109 standard bays from eight dedicated minibus spaces for pupil transport management.
- Glenwood Rise supplements the earlier £15.4m Glenwood School scheme completed by Morgan Sindall in 2017.
- Combined campus now serves 210 pupils aged 3–19 with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties.
Our Take
Glenwood School and Glenwood Rise add to a run of education projects for Morgan Sindall Construction in our database, alongside the £13m Kingsbrook School extension and the £32m Rushcliffe Spencer Academy expansion, signalling a strong pipeline in the schools sector for local authorities around the South and Midlands.
The inclusion of 7 EV charging spots within the 109-space car park aligns with Morgan Sindall Construction’s sustainability-led work on schemes like Buntingford First School (England’s first Passivhaus Trust-certified school), suggesting that low‑carbon transport and operational energy are now being embedded even in relatively modest education builds.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
