Pupils in Arnold today got to climb aboard a retired bus recently donated by a city transport firm that will soon get a new lease of life as a learning space at their school.
The bus, which is arrived yesterday (February 24) at Coppice Farm Primary School, was a former training vehicle for Nottingham City Transport and will soon be transformed into a classroom.
The transport firm donated the bus following a twitter appeal from the school’s deputy head teacher Donna Quarless.
She told Gedling Eye: “It all started back in May 2019 when I saw a tweet by a school in the south of England celebrating the arrival of their double decker library bus. I commented saying that my school would love to have a bus and tagged in Nottingham City Transport (NCT).
“Adam from NCT then messaged me back and I explained a bus would give us some desperately needed extra space – and what a brilliant, exciting classroom it would be.
“Amazingly, in September Adam then got back in touch with the amazing news that a fleet of training buses were being ‘retired’ and asked if we wanted one! We were delighted.”
Since then lots of work has taken place between staff at the school and NCT preparing the bus for its arrival yesterday.
The school are now busily fundraising to help pay for its conversion.
Donna said: “We have now received a very generous donation to our bus fund by the grandparents of two of our pupils and today ERF Electricals and Stirland Paterson have come on board to provide all electrics, furnishings, floorings and signs. Cris Brawn, a brilliant set designer at Nottingham Arts Theatre has also offered his services – it’s all systems go!
She added: “It’s such an exciting project and the bus is going to make such a massive impact on our learning here at Coppice Farm.”
NCT marketing manager Anthony Carver-Smith said: “Following a record breaking year of investment, with 77 brand new buses entering service with Nottingham City Transport in 2019, we had a small number of buses to donate to the local communities we serve.
“After one of our bendy buses was transformed in to a school library in Chilwell a couple of years ago, donating one to Coppice Farm Primary School for another exciting school project was an obvious choice, particularly as the bus was used to teach bus drivers how to drive and will now have a new life teaching young people in Arnold.”
