All of the presentations from the seminar are available here. I will also post up an update to this post with some of the highlights from the event early next week.

Related posts:

1. A-Z of school design – A is for…
2. Every Special School Matters
3. Lord Knight: the future of school design

With more than 600 academies already established in England and many more to follow we know all too well  that state independent schools have already become an established part of the new educational landscape.  Academies: Making Partnerships Work is a conference that will ask important questions at a critical time: why should schools, universities and businesses invest in academies? And how should new partnerships be established in the future? This conference will give the vision – and the advice – about where next for the Academies programme? The event will also be followed by a tour of the new Academy.

We think it will be an excellent opportunity to debate the key issues in this rapidly developing field. To book a place at the event visit the Wellington College events website.

Related posts:

1. Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service
2. Building Better Schools conference – have your say
3. Still waiting for Sebastian James…

Overview
We’ve been saying for a long time that the Building Schools for the Future programme was rightly ambitious but unnecessarily unwieldy, expensive and complicated.  This review mirrors that position.  The key now is to come up with an approach that meets the needs of our children and teachers.

30% savings to school building costs
An ambitious target – whilst this might be true of the pilot school with all industry eyes on it, we must be realistic about that being replicated across all refurbished or newly built schools.

Fit for purpose schools
It’s very good news to see this expression repeated throughout the report.  We hope this leads to the development of a decent school standard, which would ensure that all schools are built to a level that positively supports teaching, learning, sport and play.

Standardisation
There is a role for the standardisation of design – the danger is whether the standard is high or low; that will dictate whether schools have the potential to be fit for purpose. We must ensure there is room for innovation in the future.

Evidence of the impact of school buildings on attainment and behaviour
We’ve always called for a robust programme of research on the impact of new school buildings. There IS clear evidence that school environments matter – detailed research in the form of post occupancy evaluation will also help support good practice around design and construction in the future.

A new central body for school buildings
There’s a role for a new central body to support the school building programme, but we welcome the suggestion that funding could sit within the Department for Education.  This should help support a change in culture in the procurement, design and construction process, which the report says is key to making change happen. We’re sorry the review did not recommend the establishment of a national advisory council which could act as a feedback mechanism direct to the Department – one of our key recommendations in our submission.

Local investment plans
The idea of putting local authorities at the centre of the process is welcome in principle.  The need to manage tensions will be key.

Condition of the school estate
A very welcome recommendation – an ongoing piece of work which tracks the condition of the school estate, which will help central and local government plan and help keep our school estate fit for purpose.

Timetable for recommendations
An ambitious timetable is welcome, particularly after the delays to the review itself.

Related posts:

1. James Review is (finally) here
2. Capital ‘James’ Review – our submission
3. Still waiting for Sebastian James…

• the much aired challenges, problems and waste associated with the Building Schools for the Future programme
• the suggestion that free schools capital budgets should be retained centrally
• that Partnerships for Schools should have an even larger remit and reach as a central body including negotiating contracts with the construction industry

There are also the issues we raised in our previous blog posts around: greater standardisation, the reduction in red tape around planning and building regulations, the use of faster procurement routes and a move away from the goals of school capital programmes being focused on ‘educational transformation’ to look instead at building condition and pupil places. He also recommends that new buildings should be based on a set of standardised design templates (referencing the kind of model used by Dixons and TESCOs) – yet will incorporate “the latest thinking on educational requirements.

The author of the report, Sebastian James, Operations Director for Dixons, says that the current system was “complex, time-consuming, expensive and opaque and that savings of up to 30% could be made by streamlining it” and that a “lack of expertise” among those procuring the buildings – often head teachers – meant there was little opportunity to lower costs or improve building methods”.

Already the review has sparked some interesting comment including Neil O’Brien, Director of Policy Exchange who in his Telegraph blog (as well as their report Building Blocks) is highly critical not only of BSF but also of the role of Partnerships for Schools.

We are currently preparing our analysis and response – but in the meantime the review document and letter from Sebastian James can be found at the Department of Education website.

Related posts:

1. Capital ‘James’ Review – our submission
2. Still waiting for Sebastian James…
3. Responding to the James review

Education took centre stage in today’s budget alongside tax changes, fuel duty changes, scrapping of business regulations, planning reform and investment for exports in what the Chancellor entitled his ‘plan for growth’.

‘Let Britain be the home of enterprise,’ said Osbourne, as he highlighted education as key pillar in his aim for Britain to be ‘globally competitive’. An ‘attack on Britain’s low skills ‘ was essential he claimed.

The budget also included a new deal on Green energy and a green investment bank. Measures to close tax avoidance loopholes also introduced.

Commenting that other countries had improved their ‘education systems’ with far-reaching reforms, the chancellor announced:

• Support for Technology & Innovation at nine Universities
• Small Companies research tax credit – expanded
• 21 New Enterprise Zones created across the country
• Expansion of University Technical College’s – to fund twenty four
• Apprenticeships – expanded
• As a small charity good to see Gift aid limits increased from £500 to £2000

‘Made in Britain, Designed in Britain’ This was a ‘march of the makers’ budget according to the Chancellor.

Related posts:

1. Still waiting for Sebastian James…
2. School capital investment – getting our house in order

That still leaves some big questions – what’s to be said about Labour’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Were there any redeeming features about BSF? How can we ensure proper design for teaching and quality with an off-site modular approach? Is it sustainable and enduring to issue summary cost cuts to present and future projects? How do you incubate real innovation in an era of more for less? Shouldn’t Academy sponsors just be trusted with the capital spend – without intermediaries? How can Free Schools be created, work and really look and feel different to the parents involved?

Yesterday, I defended some aspects of BSF at a round table event chaired by Sir Mike Tomlinson. What I couldn’t defend was the silence of too many professionals and organisations, at the time, about what was really wrong with the BSF delivery process. The multiple professions involved should have done their own house-keeping. We wasted too many opportunities to get BSF right. We should have put our own house in order – not incrementally but properly.

School buildings are also becoming an even more deeply political subject and if you have any doubt, Michael Gove speaking at the Spectator conference last week said:

“People blame us. But if you are upset, the guilty men are Gordon Brown and Ed Balls; and the Treasury were responsible. The last Labour Government deliberately chose the most expensive route to build schools. I’m as angry as anyone else about the state of some of our school buildings”

There was also an equally lively exchange this week in the House of Commons:

Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab): The Secretary of State’s comments about the state of the school estate in comparison to what it was like after the Conservative Government in 1997 are nothing short of a disgrace. The reality is that this year the average secondary school has had its budget for maintenance and repairs cut from more than £105,000 to less than £20,000 this year. The Secretary of State has spectacularly failed to stand up for our schools and our schoolchildren. Does that not fatally expose how vacuous his claims are to have found more resources for schools this year?

Michael Gove: That question was beautifully written, almost as though it had been carved in marble by a master mason. The truth is that no one on that side of the House can afford to clamber on to their high horse when it comes to school buildings. It was that side of the House that inherited a golden economic legacy and squandered it. It was that side of the House that betrayed a generation of young people by giving us a record deficit and a record debt. It was that side of the House that presided over a schools building programme that was reckless, profligate and inefficient. It was that side of the House that put political convenience and partisanship ahead of our young people. Frankly, even though the hon. Gentleman was not in the last Parliament, every time he comes to that Dispatch Box to talk about the state of our education system or school buildings, there is only one word we need to hear from him, and that word is sorry (Source: Hansard)

The state of school buildings clearly matters to the coalition and the opposition as well as to our schools and communities. Indeed it is this passion for the fabric of schools that started our own organisation. But not everything lasts forever – BSF had its day. We at the BCSE have also had to rethink how we shape and respond to the new landscape ahead. We are an independent charity and not party political. We have tried to be a cool voice in a heated debate.

Lets hope the launch of the James Review heralds the rational debate this important subject needs. Also keep an eye on this Wednesday’s budget for some positive news on ways forward for investment in our schools and colleges.

Related posts:

1. Capital ‘James’ Review – our submission
2. Responding to the James review
3. Waiting for Superman: Free Schools vs Local Schools – the debate starts here

Related posts:

1. Free schools – opening up the debate
2. Waiting for Superman: Free Schools vs Local Schools – the debate starts here
3. Building Better Schools Conference – 9-10 November 2010 – now live

Give me the decayed glamour of a music hall in the East End; a panel discussion on education and I’m a happy man. This week I was a guest of Teach First at a Times Plus Newspaper debate:- ‘ Are our Schools Fit for purpose? ’ at Wilton’s Music Hall just off cable Street,  London, E1. Here are some golden nuggets from this tuesday’s interesting and stimulating evening.Dylan William – I’d last worked with the Professor on last year’s BBC2 programme , ‘ Classroom Experiment’ where the BCSE and its members had re-furbished a classroom to enable a powerful teaching experiment to take place. Dylan is as lyrical as Peter Gabriel in presenting a fact-based analysis of what real support our teachers need – it’s the ‘Love the one you’re with’ strategy.

According to the Institute of Education’s, William :

• 90% of school choice is not an advantage – it matters more which classroom you are in rather than which school. It’s teacher quality within a school that is the major issue.
• We need a relentless focus on teacher improvement – real time not wished for improvement in the actual ‘craft’ of teaching.
• For many teachers there are real and serious mental health challenges – an openness and honesty is needed about this issue.
• A new strategy of ‘love the one you’re with’ ; ie: the present teacher rather than a rhetoric of good/bad school will cost more in political will and focus than we’ve ever done before.

Modelled on Teach for America, England’s Teach First is led by the quiet American, Brett Wigdorz. For Brett the key issues are these:

• Meet any six year old and it is their parent’s income that will be the key determinant of their educational future
• Who goes to University? – Pupils on free school meals -16% ; Independent school pupils – 96%

Baroness Estelle Morris is so likeable, yet she must get fed up hearing how she resigned by way of introduction.

• Estelle identified the progress that had been made – teachers are better; quality of teaching and leadership identified as really vital and schools are better at collaborating
• Yet some young people are not engaged and we’re not evidence-based
• the dividing line between education and politics is drawn wrongly

Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State – tonight an exceptional aggregator of individual and diverse opinions.

• Schools must do better – education should be a direct attack on social inequality
• Children should be the Captain of their own fate and the author their own life story
• Some of the problems are deeply buried within the education system
• Future watchwords are, school autonomy; fair accountability and teacher quality

The panels’ major area of consensus is motivating and retaining great teachers – also a key national challenge. This debate was a key dialogue and as Dylan said, ‘ evidence is not the plural of anecdote. ’

This really was an involving and inspiring natter; not top down lecturing …..sounds like a model for a new beginning? An ex Labour Secretary of State, an Emeritus Professor and a Conservative Secretary of State go into a bar….. More old music hall consensus and rational debate please.

Related posts:

1. Waiting for Superman: Free Schools vs Local Schools – the debate starts here
2. School capital investment – getting our house in order
3. Gove 1 Balls 0 – A Battle of Ideas

In discussion with the review team at the Department, and with Sebastian James himself, the British Council for School Environments (BCSE) has communicated key messages from the full spectrum of its membership. The BCSE’s submission to the review gave a commonsense overview of what had worked well in the past and what needed to be improved. A ‘Blueprint for Schools’ developed by the BCSE drew on international research to identify optimum school environments. Decent School environments and key enabling factors – like quality of air, light, acoustics, temperature, comfort and build quality – do matter and can influence educational outcomes . To read the British Council for School Environments’ submission to the James Review and research overview – see below.

Within a matter of weeks the review, I understand, will appear as an interim report for further consultation, discussion and debate. It is our responsibility  to think about the quality of the educational experience and environment for all young people. Seeking common ground is not a sign of weakness but a national imperative. The James Review will play its part in that national debate.

Capital Review: British Council for School Environments response

Related posts:

1. Capital Review update
2. Responding to the James review
3. New Year: time for fresh thinking on school capital

We will post up the video in full very shortly – but here is a taster of what Indy Johar (Research 00, Demos and Respublica) and Pascale Scheurer (Surface to Air, Wired and Hackney Free School for Creative Entreprenurship) think about this key policy issue in the context, respectively, of the international/global debate about education and learning and at the grassroots / policy level in England.

Related posts:

1. Waiting for Superman: Free Schools vs Local Schools – the debate starts here
2. Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service
3. Free schools – connecting the dots