Sint-Amands (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The Klauterpark comprehensive school now operates in Sint-Amands (Puurs-Sint-Amands). The facilities in a comprehensive school serve purposes beyond student education. The new building enables the accommodation of after-school care services as well as sports clubs. Additional sports activities exist for participants.
The Klauterpark Comprehensive School in Sint-Amands (Puurs-Sint-Amands) finally commenced its operations, serving as a major milestone for community development. Klauterpark operates as more than just an educational institution because it provides additional services beyond formal learning.
Outside regular school hours, the Klauterpark facility welcomes after-school programs, sports activities and community-based organisations. The building’s innovative design creates maximum utilisation, which benefits both students, local inhabitants, and organisations.
Klauterpark operates as a facility which unifies children’s after-school care with educational and sports programs across its various spaces. Educational upgrades at the primary school now involve modernised bathrooms and separate spaces dedicated to young children’s rest with access to a state-of-the-art gymnasium for gymnastics instruction.
Local sports clubs, including Turnkring Pacsam VES and Athletes Gym utilise advanced equipment that includes a heated gymnastics floor and a boxing ring that can be detached. The sports hall provides space for badminton matches, volleyball tournaments, and basketball games. Other groups can book the facility for sports training sessions and lessons when no preschool classes are running.
School infrastructure must increasingly be usable outside school hours,
says director Claude Duhamel.
In order to be subsidized, we are also obliged to open the school maximally since the Flemish government’s open schools decree. It goes without saying that this is a big plus for the residents of Sint-Amands.
Outside of school hours, the building is monitored by municipal employees.
If that were to be done by the school, it would be virtually impossible. That’s why we work together with the municipality to open and close the doors, for example.
Our basic groups can come here to do gymnastics all week and on the weekend,
says Ellen Gevers, chairwoman of the gymnastics club Pacsam and Ves.
Finding a large, well-equipped gymnastics hall is not easy for a gymnastics club. We need a lot of material. We are very happy with this.
What is the history behind Klauterpark’s multifunctional approach?
The concept of multifunctional school infrastructure, like Klauterpark in Sint-Amands, aligns with the Flemish government’s “open schools” decree, which encourages schools to maximise community use of their facilities.
Through this policy, the government seeks to enhance public funds by maintaining school infrastructure availability outside classroom hours for community uses such as after-school sports access and early childhood programs along with event hosting. Since the open schools decree was introduced in Flanders, more than 60% of schools have introduced shared infrastructure usage, according to Flemish government statistics.
The municipality of Sint-Amands within the Puurs-Sint-Amands region, home to 16,000 residents, demonstrates an increasing need for sports and recreational facilities.
The Klauterpark project serves this community need by constructing a state-of-the-art sports facility alongside improved childcare facilities and dedicated club practice areas. Efficient management of school infrastructure throughout all school hours arises from the partnership between the school and municipality, which assigns municipal staff to perform oversight roles after school hours.
