Our Facilities

Our extensive campus and our very well-equipped specialist learning spaces make Uckfield College a great place to learn and to work.

Reading Room

Our beautiful Reading Room is a warm, inviting and comfortable space for students to enjoy a good read and supports the great value we place as a College on enjoying and developing personal reading. Students can curl up with a good book before and after school and at break and lunchtime. Students will spend some of their English lessons in the Reading Room and receive personalised support from our dedicated librarian in building enjoyable and inspiring reading habits. Reading isn’t just brilliant for developing students’ literacy and vocabulary, it is also a wonderful way to develop empathy and creativity.

Hall

One of our very large venues for teaching, learning and performances is the Hall. It has roll out tiered seating and can be converted quickly into a fantastic lecture theatre-type experience for assemblies, visiting speakers and conferences. There are theatre lights, large speakers, an audio system, a giant screen and a projector. The lights and sound can be programmed and controlled by a sophisticated computer system.

Theatre

Another of our very large venues for teaching, learning and performances is the Theatre. It is fully equipped with modular stage units for flexible staging, curtains, theatre lights, an audio and speaker system, a giant screen and a projector. The lights and sound can be programmed and controlled by a sophisticated computer system. It also has roll out tiered seating and is a fantastic theatre experience for assemblies, visiting speakers, conferences, fashion shows, dance shows, plays, drama productions and musicals.

Dance and Drama Studios

We have a Dance Studio in the F building and a second Dance Studio in the Leisure Centre and both are equipped with dance barres and mirrors. We use both for Dance lessons, rehearsal / practice sessions and clubs.

We have a Drama Studio in the F building (as well as our Theatre in the A building) for Drama lessons, rehearsals and clubs.

The Drama and Dance Studios have a removable, sliding wall between them and when opened up, it forms a theatre space with roll out tiered seating. It is fully air-conditioned and it boasts full theatrical sound and lighting facilities along with a backstage area including a costume cupboard, green room and toilet. The modern studio spaces both have black curtains and walls to create a super atmosphere for professional performances and the sprung wooden floor keeps dancers and drama students comfortable during even the most physical performances. The mirrored wall with barre means students really can perfect their dance moves. This is yet another fantastic performance space for super curricular clubs, conferences, fashion shows, drama productions and dance shows.

Sixth Form Study Areas

Our Sixth Form Study Area (SFSA) is a bright space for students to study independently. There is a further study area upstairs in the Sixth Form building, so everyone can find their own space to think, revise and create.

Our Sixth Formers also have a Conservatory and a Cafe where they can socialise, do group work or study in a relaxed setting.

Sport Facilities

Uckfield College boasts a wide range of high quality sport facilities. These include: two football pitches, a rugby pitch, three netball courts, two sports halls (basketball, badminton and lots of other sports), a fully equipped fitness suite, outdoor basketball courts, an artificial cricket pitch, a full size 3G (3rd Generation) all-weather pitch and a 25 metre swimming pool. Additionally, there are a host of recreational spaces scattered throughout our beautiful rural site, where students play informally.

Our full size 3G artificial turf pitch is a fantastic facility for our students, providing a reliable, high quality sporting facility unaffected by rain, sun and ice. No winter water logging and no hard baked surface in summer means PE lessons, super curricular clubs and sporting fixtures at Uckfield College carry on regardless of the weather. There are very popular and successful girls and boys football and rugby teams.

The Leisure Centre on our campus has a super 25 metre swimming pool, used for swimming lessons as well as by the college swim team for training and swimming galas. The modern and well- equipped fitness suite in the leisure centre is used by our GCSE PE and A levels students to either just keep fit or as part of their wider training plans for their various specialist sports.

During the summer our football pitches become a running track with shot put and discus circles as well as long jump pits on the outer edges of the track; enabling our Athletics Team to maintain a full training schedule for competitions. We also have an all weather cricket square in the centre of the running track which is used for PE lessons and cricket matches. Both girls and boys cricket is thriving at the college and the cricket square is very well used throughout the cricket season.

During the summer months our rugby pitch becomes the home to striking and fielding, with rounders and stool ball pitches hosting many matches and tournaments.

Our two large sports halls are used for basketball, badminton and PE lessons throughout the year and together with the 3G pitch help to ensure high quality PE provision regardless of the winter weather conditions.

Music Suite

The Music department benefits from four bespoke classrooms housed in a suite. One of the music rooms is for composition / music production and is equipped with 14 Apple Mac computers, all with Sibelius and Logic Pro Audio. There is a substantial recording studio attached to a live recording room, in addition to 4 practice rooms. One of the practice rooms is a piano suite and features a grand piano for quality practice. A storage area houses our steel drums, djembes, samba set and extensive pitched percussion - including marimba and orchestra xylophone.

Extensive WIFI Network

Uckfield College has invested sensibly in enterprise grade network infrastructure equipment covering both LAN switching and Wireless technology.

The core network provides a mixture of Gigabit and wire speed 10Gb connectivity which is required to maintain high performance and flexibility. Strong resilience is a key aspect of the network which supports IRF stacking technology to allow for resiliency and distributed link aggregation to both server infrastructure and edge switches. Network resilience is further enhanced with the use of ‘Open Shortest Path First’ advanced layer 3 routing features.

The wireless system utilises single-channel technology for ultra-high density. The College sees a higher density deployment than many universities or airports achieve. The College operates a 1:1 Chromebook deployment so seamless roaming and the ability to handle 2000 users with as many as 4000 devices is critical. The WiFi supports the latest 802.11ac technology. The College currently deploys a Fortinet Infrastructure wireless system (formerly Meru) to successfully achieve this.