The UK’s first state-funded Hindu secondary school has unveiled details of its proposed new home at council playing fields in Stanmore.
Avanti House School opened in 2012 and the secondary school is currently based in temporary premises in Common Road, Stanmore, which it will soon outgrow.
It wants to move to a new building at Whitchurch Playing Fields, in nearby Wemborough Road, and is holding a public exhibition on March 10 and 11 so people can learn more about its plans.
Its new home would be on the site of council-owned playing fields, which the school says are little used and which the council has already agreed to lease to it.
Should planning permission be granted the school hopes to move into the new building, which would accommodate 1,260 pupils, in January 2017.
It has promised to upgrade the sports facilities and make them available for community use should it get the go-ahead.
A spokesman for the Avanti Schools Trust said: “This site is ideal as it’s in the heart of the local Hindu community and is easily accessible by bus and tube.
“The playing fields aren’t very well used at the moment and there are no changing facilities. We will improve the quality of the sports facilities and making them available for use by local schools and other members of the community.”
Avanti House is a Hindu ethos school but accepts pupils from all backgrounds. It is a vegetarian school and draws on the teachings of the 16th century spiritual and educational leader Krishna Chaitanya.
The school claims to put an equal emphasis on academic achievement and the “development of character and spiritual insight”.
It says six in seven of its current pupils are Hindu, with the rest from other religions or of no faith, but its admissions policy gives no preference to students from any religion.
It is an all-through school, with pupils aged from four to 19. The secondary school is set to move to a new temporary home in Pinner this September. The primary school will move then to the existing secondary school site, which was formerly home to Peterborough and St Margaret’s School.
The public exhibition will take place at Whitchurch Junior School, in Wemborough Road, Stanmore, next Tuesday (March 10) and Wednesday (March 11), from 6.30pm-9pm each evening. For more about the school and its plans for a new home, visit www.avanti.org.uk/avantihouse.