Abbey Park Campus : Building for your Future

In September 2008, the brand new Abbey Park Campus opened its doors to the public. The new campus is part of Leicester College’s £44 million accommodation project, and provides state-of-the-art facilities in an environmentally friendly building.

New Abbey Park Ground Floor

When you walk through the doors, you will enter a large open atrium where you will find the Information Centre, student services centre, College travel agency and a large open plan social space.

The ground floor is the home of the Music and Performing Arts area, in addition to general classrooms and seminar rooms there are 10 music studios and specialist IT facilities for sound engineering and music production. Just opposite the main doors is the entrance to the two storey drama studio, which is fully equipped with sound and lighting, and retractable seating for 140 people. Next to the drama studio is the dance studio with sprung floor, floor to ceiling mirrors and ballet barres.

New Abbey Park First Floor

On this floor you will find the sound and light control box for the drama studio and a performing arts studio. The performing arts changing rooms with lockers and showers have direct access down to the stage area in the drama studio. The first floor is also the home of Adult Basic Education, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and the teacher training areas. As well as a number of classrooms and seminar rooms for those areas you will also find the online testing rooms, reflection room and cleansing facilities.

New Abbey Park Second Floor

Here you will find our stunning three storey refectory with a breathtaking glass roof. This is where you can grab a bite to eat, meet up with people, and relax in the Student Social Box. When the time for relaxing is over you will find the huge library next to the refectory, where you can choose from hundreds of books, magazines and videos to help with your studies or use one of the many PCs to complete your assignment, research on the internet and check email. The second floor is also home to the Continuing Studies area which is equipped with classrooms, basic life skills areas and personal care room.

New Abbey Park Third Floor

This is the location of both the Business and Caring Professions areas, where both have classrooms looking out onto the refectory. As well as having state-of-the-art classrooms with full IT capabilities the Business area also has a fully kitted out mock office environment, so you can see what it is like to work in a real office. The Caring Professions area also has some stunning facilities, which include a fully equipped simulated dental surgery, classrooms for practical health and social care activity and a specialist childcare classroom.

New Abbey Park Fourth Floor

Here on the top floor of the building you will find the Science, Maths and Humanities area alongside some business classrooms. Those of you interested in the sciences will find two chemistry laboratories, two biology laboratories and one physics laboratory, all fitted out with the latest equipment.

New Abbey Park Roof

Even the roof of this building is special, not only does it have a massive skylight above the refectory, it also has a wind turbine to help generate some of the power needed by the college, making it a truly green building.

The Technology and Engineering Centre

The Technology and Engineering Centre is part of Abbey Park Campus and is Leicester College’s specialist engineering facility, that houses all of the College’s engineering facilities, whether it be vehicles, mechanical, electrical or production. The Technology and Engineering Centre is located on the opposite side of the road from the new campus.

Over the three floors you will find IT facilities including CAD and CAM design suites, workshops for fabrication and welding, electronics, networking and machine engineering. In addition to a number of classrooms and seminar rooms there is also an acid etching room, a pneumatics and hydraulics laboratory and an electronics laboratory.

The motor vehicle section includes a body shop with a paint spray booth, six vehicle bays with ramps, MOT testing station with rolling road and an area for motorbikes. This area is kitted out with all the equipment that you would find in any modern motor vehicle repair centre.