Building a school for the future is a long journey involving many steps. The first involves deciding when local authorities become part of the BSF programme. BSF is being rolled out in a number of waves. The first wave was announced in 2004 and involved 16 local authorities including Bradford, Bristol, Knowsley and Solihull. Partnerships for Schools (PfS), the agency managing BSF, says local authorities were prioritised according to need, measured by educational attainment and social deprivation. But after the last wave (wave 6), the DCSF has decided to consult on how to prioritise the remaining local authorities (around 70 — roughly half the total).
Local authorities work with PfS and prepare a strategy for learning — a vision of how teaching and learning will be delivered in the schools of the future. Once the strategy has been decided, a BSF project team is set up, which includes developers, designers and architects. The local authority works closely with PfS and Cabe (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) whose job is to advise the government on architecture and design. (In January it received state funding to set up a new school design assessment panel that will vet all private sector designs for all new or refubished secondary schools). Cabe also advises local authorities, some of which involve schools at this stage.
Some local authorities also involve schools at this stage. Neil Bradford, deputy headteacher at Featherstone high school in Ealing, says: "We formed a BSF team of around half a dozen people — governors and senior members of staff — and spent three days off-site working with a design team." The school talked about its ICT requirements: "It's a partnership between you and the design team and you have to communicate efficiently."
However, Bradford found one element disconcerting: "It's pitched at you as if you're getting a brand new school when, in fact, that's not the case." PfS says around 50% of schools under the BSF programme will be new builds; 35% "significantly remodelled" and 15% "upgraded".
Martin Gomberg, Solihull's ICT manager, says: "Some schools have been recently built, so it doesn't make sense to knock them down and build another one. Also, in our case, the schools in the north of our borough are in the bottom 1% of schools, whereas in the south they are in the top 1%, so we decided to build new schools in the north and refurbish those in the south."
Procurement process
The BSF programme then enters the procurement phase, where the local authority chooses a private consortium (typically composed of a builder, ICT provider, and finance and legal teams) to build the school and deliver the ICT. This process takes around 82 weeks to complete and involves making a shortlist of three consortia. The shortlisted parties spend around three to six months preparing sample schemes, from which a winner is selected. The successful consortium then forms a local education partnership (Lep) with the local authority and Partnerships for Schools.
The procurement process has been criticised as being too long-winded. "It wastes effort, energy and the time of heads and governors," says Ty Goddard, director of the British Council for School Environments (BCSE). "It doesn't properly engage teachers or students. I've never seen so much goodwill between so many different parties from the public and private sectors — teachers, builders, designers, local authorities — and all that goodwill is in danger of going to waste."
PfS has since announced plans to streamline the procurement process, which includes reducing the number of shortlisted candidates to two. This should reduce the procurement time to 75 weeks and save around £250m, says PfS.
It's often at this stage that schools get involved in building design and ICT provision. Ian Todd, strategic project manager for RM, which has signed BSF contracts with five local authorities, says: "ICT is not putting computers into classes; quite often, the ICT is integrated with the school's CCTV system, cashless cafeteria, access control, library and telephone system."
Alison Murkin, head at Forest Oak school, Solihull, took part in a consultation exercise. "We told RM what our vision was for ICT but, because we had little experience of using ICT. So we sat down and talked through the possibilities." She says the process was "exciting" and the resulting ICT provision has "transformed teaching and learning in our school". Murkin thus believes "it's important the staff who will use this technology are involved in the design process."
Some schools also involve students in the design process, and PfS is keen to encourage this. It wants more local authorities to work with the Sorrell Foundation, which has set up a BSF workshop for young people. Martin Gomberg says the consultation process can be hard for teachers because, "they have to think about what they are doing now and what they will want to do in the years ahead." But help is available.
The Hugh Christie technology college in Kent is not part of the BFS programme, but is a template for it because it was rebuilt under a public-private partnership. The school has been designed for 21st-century learning and includes two science labs that can each accommodate 90 students, oneto- one ICT provision, a virtual learning environment and a radically altered curriculum that includes staggered starts to the school day and project-based work.
The school offers help and advice to other schools and local authorities starting BSF. Head principal Jon Barker says: "A rebuild is an opportunity to transform the learning experience and, for that, you don't just want boxes designed for 30 students. Building a school for the future isn't just
about bricks but about ideas and vision."
Weblinks
Partnerships for Schools: www.partnershipsforschools.org.uk
British Council for School Environments: www.bcse.uk.net
Sorrell Foundation: www.thesorrellfoundation.com
Hugh Christie technology college: www.hughchristie.kent.sch.uk
RM: www.rm.com
