The council wants to move Bearwood Primary from Sindlesham to a new 210-place school in Spencers Wood. Its old site would become an 80-place special school.

Wokingham Borough Council wants to move a whole primary school across the borough. Bearwood Primary School would leave its site on Bearwood Road in Sindlesham and reopen in a new building in Spencers Wood, about four miles south-west.

The council opened an informal engagement on the idea on 1 September. It closes at 17:00 on Thursday 1 October 2026, and 114 people had already responded by Friday morning.

What is proposed

The council’s proposal, published on 1 September, has three parts:

  • A new school at Spencers Wood, off Hyde End Lane and Fullbrook Avenue, with 210 mainstream places, one form of entry, and a nursery.
  • A specialist base inside it for up to 14 pupils with education, health and care plans for autism and for speech, language and communication needs.
  • An 80-place special school on the old Bearwood site, opening in September 2029 and subject to a separate consultation.

Bearwood Primary would keep its name, staff and headteacher. The council says it would run a bus from the current site to the new one for at least three years after the move.

The number that explains it: 92 empty places

Bearwood Primary is a community school for ages 3 to 11. The Department for Education’s register records 315 places and 223 pupils on roll, a record the department confirmed on 1 September 2026 (Get Information About Schools). That is 92 empty places in one building.

Schools are funded per pupil. The council puts the consequence plainly: an undersubscribed school “gets less money but still faces the same running costs and can end up in deficit”. Opening a brand new school at Spencers Wood without moving an existing one, it says, would have made that worse for every school nearby.

Meanwhile Shinfield and Spencers Wood keep building houses, and the schools there are full. So the council is not adding places to the borough. It is picking up 210 of them and putting them where the houses are being built.

Every primary-age school outside the south-west of the borough was invited to bid for the new building. The council says the process was assessed independently, and Bearwood won it.

The school being moved is a good one

That is not a throwaway line. Ofsted inspected Bearwood on 4 and 5 June 2024 and found it “continues to be a good school”. The report opens: “Pupils are rightly proud of their kind and friendly school” (Ofsted).

It has not always been. Bearwood was rated Requires Improvement in December 2014 and again in September 2016, before reaching Good in February 2019 and holding it in 2024. Fourteen per cent of its pupils are eligible for free school meals.

Headteacher Funmi Alder said: “I realise this will be difficult for some families, but our lovely school needs to move to where it is needed.”

Cllr Prue Bray, executive member for children’s services, said the proposal “would relocate places to where they’re needed most” and that the council is “fully committed to hearing their views”.

The SEND half of the plan

The 80-place special school on the Bearwood site is the part with the longest reach. The council expects the number of primary-age children in the borough needing specialist provision for autism or for speech, language and communication needs to rise by around 20 per cent between 2026 and 2030.

This sits inside the £40m programme we reported last week, which is meant to create more than 600 SEND places in the borough by 2029 and cut the number of children sent to expensive placements outside it. See Wokingham SEND places: 600 new, first hub opens this term.

The council says it would tender for the Bearwood refurbishment early, so work on the special school can start as soon as the primary moves out. That still needs its own planning application.

The dates that matter

Bearwood Primary School relocation: the decision timetable Only the first stage is open to residents right now. 1 Sep 2026 Informal engagement opens 1 Oct 2026, 5pm Deadline to respond Oct to Nov 2026 Statutory four-week consultation Dec 2026 Executive decides Sep 2029 80-place special school opens Source: Wokingham Borough Council, 1 September 2026; council engagement platform phase dates. Graphic by Wokingham Online
The December decision belongs to the council's Executive committee.

What it means for you

  • If you are a Bearwood parent or a Spencers Wood resident, this is the stage where the council says it wants your view. Respond through the council’s engagement page before 17:00 on Thursday 1 October.
  • The council has named the three things it most wants views on: the benefits and challenges of moving, the proposed transport arrangements, and the specialist base inside the relocated school.
  • This round is not the legal one. A statutory four-week consultation follows in October and November, and the Executive takes the decision in December. Responding now and again later are both open to you.
  • Nothing changes for pupils this term. Planning permission for the Spencers Wood building was granted in 2025, and the council says a construction contract is due to be awarded in the next few months.
  • If you live near the Bearwood site, the 80-place special school there is a separate consultation and a separate planning application, neither of which has opened yet.

For other applications and decisions across the borough, see our Wokingham planning news page.

Sources