page_title: St Crispin's School
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: St Crispin's School / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: View of St Crispin's School, Wokingham, Berkshire, from the London Road. This is a photo of listed building number 1238550.
context_page_description: St Crispin's School, founded in 1953, is a co-educational comprehensive school in Wokingham, Berkshire, England, catering for pupils between 11 and 18 years of age. There were 1,164 students at the school in 2017, of whom 234 were in the Sixth Form. The school is on the London Road just outside Wokingham town centre.
context_section_description: St Crispin's School was the first of the Ministry of Education's prototype prefabricated schools. It was built between 1951 and 1953 by the Ministry of Education's own team of researchers into rational school building (David Medd and Mary Crowley) under the direction of S. A. W Johnson Marshall. The work was inspired by that of the Hertfordshire Architect's Department. In the post-war years, with an increasing demand for school places, the government was under pressure to reduce costs but without compromising the school building programme. The aim was to establish new levels of cost efficiency for both erection and running costs. The building is of light steel construction with components of modular sizes. The classrooms were all originally located in a four-storey block above the main entrance with a central courtyard and a rambling series of inter-connected mostly single-storey buildings which provided accommodation for a hall, a gym and specialised teaching spaces for arts and crafts. The new techniques speeded up the building process so much that the school was able to open five months ahead of the planned schedule. It is widely believed that the school tower was designed with the potential to be modified to a hospital in times of national emergency though no records have been found to substantiate the claim. The informal layout and unassuming architecture influenced the layout and construction of schools across the country. St Crispin's was classified as a Grade II listed building by English Heritage on 30 March 1993.
  The original school site consisted of 29 acres (120,000 m²), of which 4 acres (16,000 m²) were gardens to be tended by the students.  The gardens have long gone but the school still has extensive playing fields and also benefits from the use of the adjacent St Crispin's Sports Centre.
  The artwork on the walls was a particular feature of the school in its early years. The composition slabs by the main entrance featured paintings of a modular girl by the mural artist Fred Millett (1920–1980). He also painted four murals depicting the seasons of the year, the most striking of which was a large mural at the east end of the dining hall depicting apple picking. These pictures were removed or painted over in a redecoration programme in the 1970s but was restored in the summer of 2011.
  A recent addition to the school is the brand new information and communications technology (ICT) block, built in 2005, which contains four rooms, each with around 30 computers. Many of the local primary schools come to St Crispin's for special ICT days where they have the chance to try out the new system. Recently, the school has upgraded its computer system, implementing better and faster computers with more educational software, available for the students' use. Also, Cisco has provided the school with servers and switches which are being set up in a "Networking Lab" to set a base for practical networking and server running for Cisco Students in A-Level.
  In 2012, work was started on building a new Science Block on the area where the current tennis courts are located. A new Multiple Use Games Area was then built in another location on the existing school field. The existing science block will be refurbished and the English Department will then move to this location. The Music department also relocated to the area vacated by the biology department. The whole project was completed in 2013 and cost £5 million.
caption: A view of St Crispin's from the London Road
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