Cartwright
Pickard

The transformation of Maltby Hilltop School demonstrates what can happen when architecture, construction and charitable action come together around a shared purpose.

Hilltop is a Severe Learning Disability (SLD) school operated by Nexus Multi Academy Trust, providing specialist education for around 135 pupils aged 2–19. Before the project, parts of the school were operating from cramped, inadequate classrooms and portable cabins without access to basic facilities including toilets and running water.

We joined Yorkshire Children’s Charity’s Great Yorkshire Build as lead architect, contributing our services at cost as part of a much wider team of consultants and contractors. The initiative is built around the Yorkshire property sector contributing its expertise, time, materials and supply chains contributions to transform facilities for children with SEND and SLD across the region.

At £3.5m, Hilltop is one of the largest projects undertaken through the initiative. The ambition is not simply to provide additional space, but to create specialist environments that respond directly to the needs of pupils, teachers and carers.

The transformation is being delivered in two phases. Phase 1, completed in October 2025, refurbished four classrooms and created a dedicated staff room. Phase 2, due for completion in September 2026, will provide three new purpose-built classrooms and a rebound therapy centre, supporting pupils’ physical development, sensory processing and emotional regulation.

The design also responds to some of the fundamental shortcomings of the existing school. The new classrooms replace temporary accommodation that was not fit for purpose, while the rebound centre creates a dedicated home for therapy currently taking place in the school hall. Improved connections and sheltered external teaching spaces are also designed to make the school work better for pupils and staff throughout the day.

Together, the two phases will give Hilltop facilities that better reflect the quality of education and care being delivered within them and demonstrate the impact the property and construction industry can have when its skills and resources are brought together for a shared social purpose.

"Hilltop has been a powerful reminder of the impact our profession can have when we contribute our time and expertise to something with such a clear social purpose. The Great Yorkshire Build brings together organisations from across our industry on a charitable engagement, and seeing that collective effort translate into spaces that genuinely improve everyday life for pupils, teachers and carers has been incredibly rewarding."

"For us as architects, this has been about listening carefully and understanding how relatively straightforward design decisions can make an enormous difference for children with complex needs. There’s a real sense of shared purpose across the project, and I think Hilltop demonstrates what our industry can achieve when people come together and use their skills to give something back."

— Ian Walsh, Director