City academies start to evolve

The Emmanuel Schools Foundation has appointed Davis Langdon, EC Harris and Faithful & Gould to work on a possible total of four new academies worth around £20m each.

Vardy, a millionaire car dealer, has already set up two schools through the foundation: Emmanuel College in Gateshead and Kings Aacdmey in Middlesbrough, which have gained public attention for teaching creationism, the biblical take on human development that contradicts Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The new schools will be situated in the North East of England. David Vardy, brother of Sir Peter and project director of the Emmanuel Schools Foundation, said he was in talks with local authorities, including Northumberland County Council, with the aim of providing education for 10,000 young people.

One school in Doncaster, Trinity Academy, on which Faithful & Gould is the QS, is already underway and due to open in September 2005. Faithful & Gould also worked on Kings Academy (pictured above). Gary Marshall, associate director, said he hoped for further work from the foundation and that its teaching of creationism was “not considered a barrier to doing business”.

...its teaching of creationism was not considered a barrier to doing business

Gary Marshall, F&G

The Emmanuel Foundation has also appointed architects Howarth Litchfield Partnership, RyderHKS and Watkins Gray International; and engineers Cundall Johnston and Partners, Buro Happold and Whitbybird.

Emmanuel College teaches the full national curriculum, including Darwinian evolution alongside creationism.

Under the government’s city academies programme new or replacement schools are funded through partnerships between business, voluntary sector sponsors and local education authorities. The sponsor contributes around 20% of the cost with the Department for Education and Skills making up the rest.