Building schools for the future

The Kent Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is the largest in the UK, with an anticipated capital value of £1.8bn. Its main aim is to deepen and broaden school engagement in the BSF design process and to design transformational learning environments.

The scale and complexity of the Kent programme requires innovative management solutions to ensure that sufficient pace is maintained and that sensible commercial positions are established.

At the strategic level, Kent was the first authority nationally to establish a multi Local Education Partnership (LEP) procurement solution. Breaking the programme down into three sub-procurements mitigates the risk associated with partnering with a single contractor on such a large transaction, whilst also maintaining the competitive advantages that flow from going to market with a comparatively larger lot size.

Kent is also the first wave three authority to successfully complete a BSF procurement having completed the competitive dialogue process in 15 months - considerably faster than any other authority to date.

Finally, Kent successfully enlarged the scope of its wave three project from eight schools to 12 - effectively delivering more new schools faster than the national programme had anticipated.

All of the above led Andrew Robertson, former Deputy Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools to publicly claim that "Kent is the first true BSF scheme".

The preferred bidder on Kent LEP1 programme has been announced as Land Securities Trillium /Northgate Information Solutions.

Up to 18 months before they are due to go into construction the BSF team facilitate Secondary Transformation Team engagement with BSF schools. This ensures that adequate time is spent developing plans and clear briefs for designers to work to and provides adequate time for schools to involve their own wider stakeholder groups. The team has been recognized as providing best practice by Partnerships for Schools.

The team has also developed a new vocabulary to support the design and development of transformational learning environments. The traditional school design vocabulary is limiting because it is based on classrooms, corridors, staffrooms, science labs, subjects, room sizes etc. These concepts are disconnected from Kent's educational vision which emphasizes highly personalised, flexible approaches to learning.

The Kent BSF Team has therefore focused on identifying "learning patterns" in schools. This approach allows for a high degree of personalization to occur within schools and also allows for real flexibility.

In addition to school specific education visions, Kent schools also collaborate to produce area-wide visions that demonstrate how all schools in an area will use their BSF investment to secure improved outcomes for all learners and families. Again this was a national first and has been commended by Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF).