Teacher accommodation revived at Greenleys Infant School

Milton Keynes Council has announced a partnership with St Paul's Catholic School to revive disused teacher accommodation at Greenleys Infant School for teachers new to the area.
Councillor Zoe Nolan, MK Council Cabinet Member for Children and Families, outside the accomodation.Councillor Zoe Nolan, MK Council Cabinet Member for Children and Families, outside the accomodation.
Councillor Zoe Nolan, MK Council Cabinet Member for Children and Families, outside the accomodation.

The four, one bedroom flats above Greenleys Infant School will provide low cost, short term accommodation for teachers who are moving to Milton Keynes to work in both primary and secondary schools.

St Paul’s Catholic School will fund and maintain the flats, and administer them for an initial period of five years. This will be line with the Council Plan’s commitment to bring forward plans to ensure empty or disused housing can be brought back into use by March 2019.

Cabinet Member for Children and Families, Zoe Nolan said: "This is a great way to bring more housing into use by enabling newly qualified teachers to use these flats. I hope it will encourage more teachers who are starting off their new careers to choose to live and work in Milton Keynes.

She added: “Teachers give so much to our communities and many need a nice home which is near their place of work otherwise they could be priced out of the communities they serve.”

The flats were built and designed to provide accommodation for teachers and the flats will be offered on a low cost short term lease to help recruitment and support teachers in new to Milton Keynes. St Paul’s Catholic School will fund the refurbishment of the flats enabling the Council to bring property stock back into use.

St Paul’s, in partnership with Denbigh Teaching School Alliance, leads the Tommy Flowers School Centred Initial Training Programme with 40 schools across MK benefitting from being part of this programme.

Jo-Anne Hoarty, headteacher at St Paul’s Catholic School said: “This is an exciting opportunity for St Paul’s to lead on a solution to the increasing challenge of recruiting high quality teachers to Milton Keynes schools.”