Education comment
One step forward
The government’s recent record of communicating clearly with construction is poor – except about standardised schools
Standardise cost plans, not school layouts
The best schools are flexible spaces developed from a site-specific brief. Standardised layouts simply won’t work, says Richard Hyams - but standardised cost plans might …
Education: Space exploration
This week the government trumpeted the opening of 55 free schools. But the success of the movement is being stymied by a lack of suitable sites, and with a further 114 schools approved for next year, the problem is set to get worse
The secret schools report: Failings are all too familiar
The post-occupancy evaluation, leaked to Building, contains some depressingly familiar statistics
Eco standards in schools are slipping
Michael Gove’s free schools were meant to rip through red tape. But it’s not just the curriculum that has been relaxed - increasingly, sustainability and space requirements are being dropped too. Now fears are growing that this latest austerity measure could spread to all new schools, as Allister Hayman reports
School buildings: Could achieve great things
Schools need results and, with a new building programme on its way, the design and construction industries are the best people to deliver
Schools crisis: ‘We have a responsibility to school our children’
Barking and Dagenham has to be the council the worst affected by the demise of the Building Schools for the Future programme. We look at the impact on pupils and construction in a deprived east London borough that is fast running out of space
Schools PFI: we need to learn from past mistakes
We should welcome Gove’s announcement that upto 300 schools could be built using a model based on PFI, but we also need to be on our guard
The James Review: Now it's up to us
The James Review talks a lot of sense and clarifies what challenges lie ahead. It should inspire architects to use the best of their skills to meet them
Michael Gove: The bad boy in school
The education secretary got his knuckles rapped for bad-temperedly tearing up the BSF rule book. But it won’t stop him getting his way
Back to schools
With Sebastian James’ review of school procurement due imminently, Richard Simmons sets out his hopes and fears for the future of school design
Free schools explained: Is that a free-for-all ahead?
Controversial they may be, but free schools remain central to the government’s education vision. Private sector contractors will need to keep their eye on the chance
Sacred cow burgers
Whatever you think of the coalition, it’s pretty clear it needs help. Luckily construction is in a great position to provide it, but it needs to slaughter a few horned beasties first
Freedom fighter: Toby Young interview
Author Toby Young is one of the first parents to try to found a free school - partly, it seems, in an effort to alienate as many architects as possible. Emily Wright asked him why
International schools market: If you build it, they will buy it
If you want to carry on building schools for the future, develop a cheaper product that you can sell to poorer countries that are desperate for decent classrooms
Simon Lucas: How construction can win work on free schools
EC Harris’ head of schools will be speaking at Remodelling Education Spaces taking place on 13-14 September in Manchester
Mukund Patel: How free schools will work
Why BSF had to end and the new opportunities for construction in the next round of school delivery
Schools are too expensive ...
The number of people involved and the massive fees that are paid, no wonder the cost of the schools is off the scale
Can school bid costs be recovered?
Procurement processes are usually set up to give the procuring body no duty to pay bid costs if schemes don’t go ahead. But there may be particular circumstances on certain contracts that could justify bidders recovering their bid costs
Building schools in the future
Building schools in the future Speculation about what is going to happen after the election is unhelpful (14 May, page 3).
Schools in danger
While there are inevitable criticisms that can be levelled at Labour’s record, we recognise that architecture has generally done well under Labour
Transforming lives
A new trust hopes to help school children take full advantage of the educational, creative and sporting facilities Building Schools for the Future will create for them
The green school movement
Sustainability has gone from being an optional extra to a central priority of Building Schools for the Future - and it’s an area of technology that’s getting more exciting
Steel yourselves: John Sorrell on school design
Just as we’ve finally started to build well-designed schools, the knives are out to cut back on quality. We have to resist those who threaten to wield them
BSF brings in the benefits
Providing 110,000 pupils with new facilities and buildings is something to be proud of
Partnerships for Schools: How to get our fingers burnt
It may be more the season for barbecues than bonfires, but the trail of lighter fuel moved a bit closer to one of the most influential quangos in construction this week.
Sound education
Acoustics within schools remains widely overlooked, despite the introduction of BB93, the government standards for the acoustic design of schools. This needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency
Educations what you need
In addition to the ideas listed in your article, can I suggest that creating awareness of energy use and waste through energy handbooks could contribute to erergy savings?
Schools: are we failing future generations?
School buildings must provide opportunities for children to learn as well as being designed to be as long-lived as practicable
School building: United we stand
The Education Funding Agency’s baseline school designs have opened up divisions between architects and contractors when what is needed is greater collaboration
Not perfect but good enough for these austere times
Baseline school designs: some may think we’re selling our children short but we need to look at a system that can deliver in tough times
Priority schools: what now?
The cheer the constructon industry got from the release of the list of the 261 schools to be included in the Priority Schools Building Programme has been tempered by uncertainty about how the initiative will actually work
The secret schools report: Learning from the past
The government wouldn’t reveal its post-occupancy review of schools - so Building will
We can deliver cost-effective schools while keeping BREEAM
The subtext to the debate over scrapping the BREEAM standard for school buildings is that it costs too much, but, says Sean Lockie, that ignores our ability to deliver schools efficiently
Providing schools: Creative classes
We don’t have enough places for kids in the schools their parents want. A new approach is needed: adapting other public buildings for education and bringing in private help to show us how
Setting the bar high
Is standardising design the way forward for schools? Yes, says Philip Watson, but only if ‘standardisation’ means ‘best practice’ and we consider the individual needs of the school
How will academies procurement work?
As school academies move away from central control they will have to procure goods and services that were previously the responsibility of the local authority
Schools: How do you make standardisation and refurbishment work together?
Caroline Buckingham of HLM architects argues that the government needs to join up its policies on school buildings
What the High Court victory means for BSF
Six local authorities won a partial victory against the government’s decision to scrap BSF. What happens next?
Future of education looks prefab
Local authorities were due to find out this week how much they will have available to spend on schools. Labour’s £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme has been abolished and the coalition has pledged to spend £15.8bn improving the school estate.
The first of many BSF legal challenges?
While councils may be minded to claim back wasted costs, private sector players are just focused on not making a bad situation worse
Spending cuts: Education was just the start...
After the shock of the education spending massacre, the cutbacks will probably provoke despair rather than anger
Why I'm convinced by free schools: Free-range children
Now the dead hand of central government has been prised from our throats, we can build schools in a way that is excitingly new - and strangely old-fashioned
BSF exclusivity agreements: More punishment to come
Companies whose schemes escaped the Building Schools for the Future cull should not bank on their exclusivity arrangements continuing unscathed
BSF collapse: Acrimony, angst and anger
The collapse of Building Schools for the Future has left a lot of bad feeling, but in some ways the programme deserved to die - and we now have the chance to do it better
Schools out for tender
It’s a new order for those involved in building schools after the coalition’s savage cutbacks. But the changes should bring opportunities for smaller contractors
Ty Goddard: Improving our education infrastructure
Money may be tighter than a camel in a sandstorm, but we still have to improve our education infrastructure somehow. Ty Goddard gives a few pointers as to what we might do
What’s going on?
The coalition has stated that it will review spending commitments made since January using its own value for money criteria, and it’s obvious that the £55bn earmarked for schools renewal is not going to survive this process unscathed
BSF is dead. So now what?
Regardless of who won the election, Building Schools for the Future was doomed. But it can adapt into something new – and so can the architects that do it
BSEC: A productive start to a productive year
Partnerships for Schools celebrates diversity as it marks its 50th BSF project
Education frameworks: evaluated
With education playing a crucial role in construction workload, Partnerships for Schools has demonstrated that frameworks work
Back to schools: Building in a recession
Question one. How can we keep spending billions on school building while struggling with the biggest crisis in our public finances since the war?
No summer holiday for the BSF programme
Rather than shutting down for the summer holidays BSF schools will open their doors to the local community
Do well at schools: How to win BSF work
If you want to come out at the top of the class in the competition for Building Schools for the Future work, now’s the time to pull your socks up
An education in form filling
You report that the education sector may be about to embrace an “NHS Procure21-style” strategy for the procurement of its buildings (6 May, page 11).
