Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is the largest single schools capital investment programme for over 50 years - constituting a government investment of £45bn. The aim is to rebuild or renew England's state secondary schools estate during the lifetime of the programme.
But the BSF programme has come under fire since its inception and most would agree it didn't get off to the best of starts. At the end of last year, it as revealed that almost two-thirds of the early waves of school rebuilding projects in England were behind schedule. This followed the news that only 37 schools would be completed by the end of 2008 compared with the 200 originally planned.
And if that wasn't bad enough - there was even criticism of the schools that had been rebuilt. A report by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment in (Cabe) in 2007 found that only one in five schools built since 2000 were of excellent design.
However, since the early criticism, the BSF scheme appears to have turned a corner. The National Audit Office report into BSF, published in February 2009, stated that the programme is now being well managed and that Partnership for Schools is keeping costs under control. It added: "BSF schools have been built to a higher specification and space standards than previous schools".
Partnerships for Schools (PfS) was established in 2004 by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (previously DfES) and Partnerships UK to deliver BSF The key role for PfS is to ensure that investment in secondary schools is based on robust educational strategies and that BSF schools and Academies are well designed, are built on time at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer, and are properly maintained over their lifetime.
The PfS joined forces with Cabe last year to develop The Minimum Design Standard for BSF. This will mean that designs that do not meet the rigorous standard will not be able to proceed through procurement.
Proposed designs for BSF sample schools will continue to be assessed by Cabe's schools design panel. Only designs graded by the panel as very good or pass will be able to proceed through procurement and into construction - designs graded unsatisfactory or poor at their final review will be stopped.
Speaking at the launch of the Minimum Design Standard at Stockwell Park High School in south London, a BSF school which scored the highest possible rating when it was reviewed by Cabe in 2007, the Rt Hon Jim Knight MP said the Minimum Design Standard is a clear signal that objective review of sample designs is key to helping improve the quality of school design.
"BSF is an unprecedented programme to sweep away the legacy of long-term underinvestment; replace school buildings coming to the end of their shelf-life with high class facilities; and transform secondary school standards," he said.
"There had been no national school building programme for decades before BSF but we learned fast from the early phases, that involving experts like Cabe early and intensively made sure that local authorities got the support they needed in getting designs right.
"The Minimum Design Standard takes this further and is absolutely fundamental to BSF's long-term success. It is the first time ever that independently assessed, clear, objective and robust design standards have been laid down for a public sector building construction programme. It adds real teeth to the design process so that any project failing to make the grade will simply not move forward and that all building projects are fully assessed before construction. It will make the design process faster and more efficient by promoting best practice and thinking in school design."
Richard Simmons, Chief Executive of Cabe, said: "This will have a longer term impact on the quality of our schools than almost any other educational reform - curriculums may change but the buildings are essentially fixed."
The 23 companies currently bidding in the BSF market will be invited to attend MDS workshops to ensure the new process and methodology is understood, to ask questions about how the MDS will work in practice, and to receive private feedback on how their design performance compares to the sector as a whole.
And in order to help bidding teams achieve the standard, Cabe has also launched a new online resource, ‘Successful school design', with practical advice and guidance on the design strategies needed to meet the 10 criteria used by the schools design panel. This includes annotated examples of good schemes seen by the panel.
One of the ten criteria is entitled "Long Life: Loose Fit" it is here that Cabe addresses the issues of how school design needs to be future-proof. Cabe advises that a successful scheme will respond to changing daily needs and accommodate different organisational structures over time. Furniture and equipment should allow easy layout changes.
One of the key areas to address when maintaining standards and life cycle costings is the adaptablity of the space available. The more adaptable the school, the less investment will be required in future years, should the requirement of the school change.
Cabe asks that BSF bidders consider the following questions:
- Is the building able to accommodate different organisational structures or pedagogies over time?
- How well does the design allow for future expansion of the school?
- What impact will alternative layouts have on the circulation?
- Which pastoral / curriculum groupings can the plan accommodate?
- Do the building services allow for adaptation of the plan?
- If the layout changes, what will be the impact on the daylighting of the space? On acoustics? On ICT?
- Does the design make provision for future change if required?
- Can circulation routes be extended for future additions?
One may wonder how the government could have taken so long to introduce stricter guidelines on the design of the new schools - considering the high level of investment involved. But Diana Hinds of the Guardian believes the lack of "rules" is one of the great opportunities of BSF, allowing local authorities and individual schools a rare chance to come up with their own educational vision of the future to meet the needs of their own communities.
"This is not a programme about standardisation or ‘one-size-fits-all,'" she wrote recently. "But it also presents BSF with one of its major tasks, as the programme gathers momentum: what is the most effective way for schools and local authorities to avoid each other's mistakes and learn the lessons from what has gone before?"
There is still a way to go but Barry Sheerman MP, chair of the House of Commons education select committee investigating BSF's progress so far said last year "The PfS team have made a lot of changes. Tim Byles is playing an instrumental role in making sure that schools and local authorities coming new to BSF are learning from what's gone before."
These changes include ensuring that local authorities that sign up for BSF projects have the proper resources to proceed and reducing the time and money spent on the procurement process. The PfS is encouraging more local authorities to work together on procurement, saving time and helping them to share expertise. And, environmental targets - surely one of the most important issues when building schools for the future - are now coming more to the fore.
Perhaps the first lesson to be taught in our new schools will be that one can learn from one's mistakes. Building Schools for the Future does not simply mean tearing down Victorian edifices and replacing them with modern buildings and whiteboards. It means creating a learning space that can adapt over time, be environmentally friendly and remain inspirational whatever the future holds.
