Building a future for Bristol students

More than a decade and a half since Dick Hibdige first came up with the idea for an ‘educational shopping mall’, his vision is finally taking place at the Bristol Brunel Academy.

“I had a vision to build a school whose design was driven by functionality not form; a building where everybody would be pleased to come on a Monday morning; in which all users would feel safe, working and learning together,” says Hibdige.

Deputy head at Bristol’s Bedminster Down Secondary School, whose recent PFI revamp he helped design, Hibdige is on secondment to Bristol City Council’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) team. He is convinced that the city’s – indeed, the country’s – first BSF school could not have been built without the close co-operative relationship fostered by the BSF model.

Public/private partnership

The key to delivering BSF is the local education partnership (LEP), a new type of PPP in which a private sector partner invests alongside the public sector. Bristol is the first LEP to be created, and is a partnership between Skanska, Bristol City Council and Partnerships for Schools, the government’s BSF delivery body.

The LEP reached financial close on the Bristol Brunel Academy in July 2006, and the school is due to open for the start of the new school year in September 2007. This first wave of Bristol BSF will see a further three secondary schools built: Brislington Enterprise College; Whitefield Fishponds Community School; and Hartcliffe. The construction value for these initial four schools is £119m, and Skanska’s role includes managing the hard and soft FM for 25 years.

All are in very deprived parts of Bristol, where BSF’s central philosophy of transformational education is sorely needed. ICT is a key means of achieving this, and will be woven into the fabric of every school.

“ICT is a major part of what we are doing here,” says John Burgess, who is on secondment from Skanska to oversee management of the LEP. “It’s crucial that BSF is not simply seen as asset replacement, but is actually an educational transformation programme.”

Skanska’s ICT partner is Northgate Information Solutions. “This is still the only LEP with ICT integrated that has come to financial close,” points out Northgate marketing manager Eleanor Lee. “It means that we integrate the ICT infrastructure with the construction, working with Skanska’s design team much further up in the process. It’s about personalised learning tailored to each pupil; it’s not arrogant to think this is going to change everything.”

The most important point, says Skanska project director Mark Giltsoff, is that ICT is throughout the building in every school. Gone are the days when all the school computers are found in just one room, with pupils fighting for time on a console.

Becoming a BSF contractor is a long-term and potentially very lucrative commitment. By winning a place on the LEP, Skanska, providing it meets its KPIs, has secured a 10-year exclusive partnership to deliver education projects valued at more than £500m for Bristol City Council through the LEP. It is developing two new-build academies and a number of children’s centres, as well as working towards the delivery of five schools as part of Wave 4 BSF.

Would it not have been easier to let another contractor take the risk of undertaking the first BSF school? Giltsoff insists not, and says being the Pathfinder contractor is an advantage.

“One of the reasons we and Bristol are able to benefit is the track record we have established already – we are in the position to deliver for the next wave,” he says.

Community relationship

Building a strong relationship with the teachers and students, and with the wider community, has been a priority for Skanska and the LEP. Skanska must employ 70% local labour, as well as take on apprentices, provide vocational training and offer work experience.

Pupils have been involved in the design and attend regular workshops. It is hoped this approach will help prevent vandalism to the new building. “Building in ownership is incredibly important,” says Burgess. Parents are also involved. “These are all currently failing schools, so they [the parents] want to see how performance is going to be improved.”

The local community is kept informed, and the schools include leisure facilities, which will be open to the public for much of the time.

“The school becomes the centre of the community,” says James Macmillan, environmental manager at Skanska. “These are areas of the city that may never have had any leisure facilities before.”

A new, all-weather pitch has already proved so popular that people have been breaking in to use it. “It’s not actually officially opening until this time next year, but they already have 80 hours booked up a month,” says Burgess. 

So what has Skanska learnt from this first wave of BSF?

“BSF suits the Skanska business model,” says Giltsoff. “I think there are still improvements to be made in the bid process nationwide – we are fortunate at Bristol to have stuck to programme, but I know other BSFs across the country haven’t necessarily done so.”

Giltsoff says the council has had huge input into the learning process. “Bristol’s experiences in the first PFI projects that HBG did have also thrown up valuable lessons. Next time round we would like to get more teacher and pupil engagement during the early stages,” he says.

Burgess agrees. “We haven’t been formally approached yet for Wave 4, but we are working with the authority on visiting the schools, meeting the heads, understanding what the staff would like to achieve. That way the design will absolutely meet their needs.”

The Skanska team are full of praise for their public sector partner. “Bristol has been excellent for a local authority,” says Burgess. “One has the concerns when working with the public sector that life may not be as straightforward as it is when dealing with a commercial organisation. Although we have understanding and learning from this phase that will undoubtedly aid us in the future, we do depend entirely on our public sector partner to make a success of any particular project.”

Burgess is clearly passionate about this scheme. “One of the real big pluses is that we are all enthused by the project, because it’s delivering something that everyone can see the need for and value of,” he says.

BSF in practice: Bristol Brunel Academy

Bristol Brunel Academy is unlike any other school. Designed by Wilkinson Eyre Associates, one of the architects behind the 12 original exemplar Building Schools for the Future (BSF) designs, its most striking architectural feature is the huge, full-height central corridor, spanned by bridges and walkways, a theme of communal space that runs through the designs for all four Bristol BSF schools.

This has two functions, as Skanska environmental manager James Macmillan explains: “The idea is that the students can live and socialise within this street area. That’s where the cafés are, and much of the IT equipment, so it really becomes their environment.”

The second is to ensure the safety of the students, eliminating bullying as far as possible. “The corridor’s other function is passive surveillance,” he adds. “Schools traditionally have lots of corridors, which is a security nightmare. But from one of these elevated walkways a teacher can passively supervise everything happening in this street. There are no corners or other tucked-away hiding places.”

The same principle applies to the toilets, always a bullying hotspot. These open directly off the main- corridor and have no doors to the main hand washing area, while each cubicle has a secure floor-to-ceiling door.

Out of the upper-floor windows can be seen the current school, Speedwell Technology College – also the original name of the BSF development, eventually dropped to encourage a fresh start for the school – consisting of a couple of dilapidated prefab 1950s blocks and a cramped brick building put up more recently to replace one damaged by pupil arson. CJ is assured they are even less appealing inside.

“The existing school is run down to the absolute extreme, to the extent that there is debris netting in place to stop the bits falling on the kids,” says Skanska’s John Burgess. “It will be a huge change for both them and the teaching staff.”

A mock-up classroom was erected on site to iron out any potential problems and fine-tune the acoustics and fittings. There is some flexibility built in, thanks to removable walls. Finishes will be tough but attractive, including sturdy blond-wood furniture that wouldn’t look out of place in your living room.

Little was built offsite due to time constraints. “It was a very quick process from getting planning to getting financial close to starting building – just six months,” says Skanska project director Mark Giltsoff. “From a precast point of view, there wasn’t enough time to do the designs.”

Sustainability was integral to the design. As well as plenty of natural ventilation and light, there are rainwater tanks for flushing the toilets, and up to 60% of the school’s heating will be provided by biomass boilers. This feeds into the most important feature of all – the ICT. “We have the ability to use the school building as a learning resource,” says Macmillan. “The energy consumption, rainwater harvesting and other sustainable features can be monitored and the information used by the kids as part of the curriculum.”

ICT will be accessible throughout the building, with a series of breakout areas along the corridor, a cyber café, ICT-rich areas, and wireless access.
It’s a carefully managed service. “The school will become very reliant on it, teachers and pupils will expect to go into a classroom, switch it on and it all works,” says Northgate’s marketing manager Eleanor Lee. “There is no margin for things not being available.”

For Dick Hebdige of the BSF team, the school is the culmination of a long-cherished personal mission. “I’m absolutely passionate about this building, it will live and breathe in a very special way,” he enthuses. “It’s not only the first BSF, but a very special BSF - I don’t think you’ll see another one built for a long time, which will be as close to that educational shopping mall approach.”