BSF: From vision to reality
26 November 2008
Keynote speech by Tim Byles, Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools, at the first PfS Design Conference in London on 26 November 2008.
Introduction
Thank you all for coming along today to this, PfS’s first national Design Conference. It is something which I hope will become an annual affair and I think demonstrates the absolutely central role of design in making Building Schools for the Future - the largest school renewal programme since the Victorian era - not only a reality, but a success.
There will be plenty of opportunities later on today to really focus in on some of the areas which are fast moving and vital that we not only stay on top of - but ahead of - if we are to deliver educational transformation and not just new versions of old schools. Issues like sustainability and how we make our schools greener; furniture and equipment and how we ensure students and teachers are quite literally sitting comfortably; and how we properly identify the views of students, teachers, parents and residents and use this to inform design decisions.
My role in kicking off today’s proceedings is to give you an overview of where we are with BSF at the moment, and despite what you may sometimes read in the media, the picture is a fast-paced one. Also this morning I’ll be doing what it says on the tin: that is talking about BSF from vision to reality, and the role of design as the golden thread which runs throughout the entire BSF process. Most importantly, I want us to think less about the process – and the inevitable teething problems that comes with a project such as this – and turn the spotlight on outcomes and the impact it is already having on improving the lives and the life chances of young people.
If you look up ‘architect’ in the dictionary the first definition is the one you would expect: “a person who designs buildings and supervises their construction and hopes one of their commissions will feature on Channel 4’s Grand Designs.”
The second, though, seems more apposite when it comes to BSF. It reads: “an architect is a person responsible for the invention or realization of something.”
So when it comes to BSF I think we can have something of a Spartacus moment, and all stand up and declare ‘I am an architect’ as each of us – students, teachers, parents, educationalists, local authorities, the private sector, and of course, architects – play a role in shaping where and how students will learn in the future.
BSF progress:
BSF means major investment in secondary schools – and with around 80% of the schools estate more than 20 years old, and over a quarter built before the Second World War, it is much needed.
In my travels around local authorities and schools I hear regularly from teachers who spend too much time overcoming obstacles sapping the time, energy and talents they have for teaching. By harnessing good design, intelligent design, BSF is helping to make this a thing of the past.
Around half of all local authorities are now engaged in BSF, and the 70 authorities have an opportunity to revise and resubmit their Expressions of Interest documents before a new timetable for BSF – with the possibility of many authorities starting smaller projects earlier than previously thought – being announced in 2009.
Our aim is to get as many schools and local authorities started with their plans to revolutionise the quality of schools with cutting-edge design and energy efficient buildings as soon as is practicable.
There are now 42 BSF schools – a mixture of new build and refurbishment projects – open across England, and we expect this number to reach 50 by the end of the financial year. Just last week I attended the official opening of the first pupil referral unit to be built through BSF, and with special schools, all-through schools as well as mainstream schools amongst the number, it demonstrates that BSF is truly about inclusiveness and ensuring that every young person fulfils their potential, no matter what their background, no matter what their needs. To help ensure that mainstream and special schools are as good as they could be, at the beginning of December the DCSF is will launch guidance setting out the design vision for disabled children and children with special educational needs. Building Bulletin102 will replace the current BB77 and enshrine BSF’s upgraded space standards.
All of this makes for a challenging landscape in which architects and BSF teams must operate – but it is a challenge which I believe we are more than capable of meeting and, indeed, exceeding.
Focus on outcomes
It is probably true to say that in the early days of the project there was more of an emphasis on improving and repairing infrastructure, rather than on design as a catalyst for new ways of learning. In July this year the DCSF commissioned DEGW to lead an ambitious piece of work to explore ‘Personalised Learning’ and the implications for spatial design, but BSF is already listening to, and learning from, teachers and students about where and how tailored, flexible learning can take place in their schools.
We simply didn’t listen enough to the most important people – the users of the building. They are, after all, what brings a building to life. We didn’t think enough about how design needs to be discussed, tested and flexed throughout the entire process, and we have also learned that it’s not just the building themselves – but the furniture and equipment inside them – that truly transforms the teaching and learning experience.
Now, with schools operational and growing experience in the market,
the time has come for us to focus more than ever on the outcomes – what we want the ultimate destination to be, and not get too bogged down in how we get there.
The outcomes must be:
• Better learning environments for all students;
• Better teaching environments for all education professionals;
• Better access to facilities for local residents;
And
• Better choices for parents about where their children go to school.
Outcomes for students
“Teachers don’t spend their breaks in the rain, so why should we?” This comment, from a Nottingham student, instantly transports me back to school break times spent shivering and seeking shelter. But for all of us involved in BSF it reminds us that we do need to get young people involved, to seek their views on all aspects of the programme and how it will impact on them and their peers.
Young people don’t have the same boundaries that many of us have – they can literally think the unthinkable without reining themselves in with thoughts of cost or timescales. What we are learning through our DQI conversations, our own experience, and that of organisations such as The Sorrell Foundation, is that student engagement does matter. However, we need to ensure that this is not just a tick-box exercise: nicer toilets – tick; somewhere to sit and chat with mates before school starts – tick; something that looks like the Westfield shopping centre – tick; but that we successfully shift from consulting young people to fully involving them as partners, owners and equals.
As a Nottingham teacher said about the student engagement strategy for the city’s BSF scheme:
“Students were so perceptive during the engagement meetings with the various bidders. They knew when they were being enticed with trinkets and when genuinely innovative designs and options were being suggested.” Sounds to me like there is a lot some BSF teams could learn from this youthful insight.
What we are learning is that new and remodelled school environments are already having an impact on attitudes, behaviour, attendance and examination results. In the first BSF school to be delivered by a Local Education Partnership, Bristol Brunel Academy, students have described their new school as ‘inspirational’, ‘colourful’, ‘motivational’, ‘stimulating’ and ‘comfortable’. In reaction to the new building and new investment, vandalism, graffiti, littering, and bullying are all much less of a problem in the new school.
What is coming through loud and clear from across England is that students are reacting positively to the simple fact that so much time and effort has been put into shaping their new schools shows they really do matter.
Outcomes for teachers
A lot of emphasis is placed on the 3.3 million students who will be the beneficiaries of BSF investment, but an equally important group – who in many cases will be spending longer than five years in school – and that’s the teachers. And I do mean all teachers, indeed all school staff, and not just headteachers or the senior team.
Again we need to ensure that this stakeholder group has the time, the design vocabulary and the experience to engage meaningfully and be able to influence decisions which may impact on them for decades to come.
These education professionals should be given an opportunity to work with designers and local authorities to express not just the need for short-term adaptability in teaching and learning spaces, but longer-term pedagogical changes. As the Principal of Brislington Enterprise College in Bristol said of his new school: “If the old building ‘depressed aspiration’, this building does the exact opposite.”
And it’s crucial that this applies to teachers and other school workers as much as it does to students.
We are hearing how flexible spaces which transform easily from combined class teaching to areas that suit personalised learning, are allowing teachers to innovative and stretch themselves as much as the young people they teach.
Teachers’ experience of how students circulate around a building, where they congregate, where the blackspots are, need to be fed into the design brief - as well as how they could imagine learning might be organised in the future, and what this means for the learning environment
The choice of furniture and equipment as part of design discussions is something which we should not overlook for its transformational impact for education. It is for this reason that Partnerships for Schools has deliberately separated Furniture and Equipment from buildings and grounds in the new draft Output Specification template, to emphasise the importance F&E can play in providing an agile environment suitable for personalised learning.
We are advising that where tables and chairs are replaced - and generally they are replaced, rather than refurbished - that they should conform to the new European standard EN1729. This not only means that they will be more ergonomically suitable for secondary school students of today, which should help to make some of the back problems students currently suffer from a thing of the past, but crucially that they will be strong, stable and adaptable.
I am pleased to hear from the British Educational Suppliers Association and from the Furniture Industry Research Association that the new standards will have insignificant cost implications for schools and local authorities. However, as you can hear more later on today, some local authorities are already looking for more adjustable and agile furniture solutions and as a result are choosing to commit more of their BSF budget towards this area as they see how this investment can have a real impact for relatively low spend.
Outcomes for communities
BSF is also benefitting communities, and in numerous ways. I’m not sure whether my anecdote about rising house prices in the vicinity of one new build BSF school still holds water in the credit crunch era, but certainly BSF is helping to instill a renewed sense of pride amongst local people.
Take the example of the Michael Tippet School, a Special School in the London Borough of Lambeth, as an example. On a recent taxi journey to the school the cab driver was stunned, but not speechless, when he saw the new school. He even asked me whether I thought his children might be able to go there, so wowed was he by first impressions.
For this school the look of the building, and the materials selected, has made a big impact on how the school is viewed and accepted by the local community. Instead of an apologetic building, this is a colorful, statement of a school which draws local people to enquire what it is, who goes there, and what goes on inside it.
BSF is about putting schools back at the centre of their communities, and the co-location of wider services is a huge part of this with everything from libraries, gyms, sports pitches, climbing walls, theatre spaces, business and ICT suites through to health and social services, nursery provision, conference facilities, and multi-faith centres accessible by all members of the local community. The inclusiveness agenda does, however, pose challenges for designers as we balance the need for access with the safety of students and the security of school property, and how we overcome the obstacle for some adults who are put off using the resources on their doorstep because they ‘don’t want to go back to school’.
Outcomes for parents
And finally, what’s in it for parents, the people who are – after all – the single biggest influence on young people? A new or remodelled school is not a panacea, we all know that, but every picture is worth a thousand words, and for parents this unprecedented level of investment tells them that their child’s future is important, whatever their social background, whatever their ability. As the parent of a special needs pupil told us: “Our children used to be pushed to the back…to have something like this for them is marvellous.”
We are just getting the results back from our first parent poll, sampling the views of mums and dads nationally and in Leeds, where four BSF schools opened this September. There has been a positive reaction to many of the improvements brought about by new design, such as:
• Nearly all the parents of children who attend a BSF school (95%) were happy with the overall state of their school buildings and grounds, compared with only 54% of parents whose children attend other schools saying they were happy;
• 92% of parents with children at new BSF schools in Leeds said they were happy with the sport, dance and drama facilities at their child’s school, compared to 74% of those with children at non-BSF schools;
• When asked how happy they were with the IT and computing facilities at their child’s school, 97% of ‘BSF parents’ were happy (75% very happy) compared with 77% (33% very happy) of non-BSF parents;
• 71% of BSF parents in Leeds were happy with the quality of teaching offered, compared to 63% of parents attending a non-BSF school;
• 81% of respondents with children at a new BSF school in Leeds said they would recommend the school to other parents, compared with 72% of parents with children at another school;
• When asked how much of a difference flexible learning spaces which can be moved around for different classes – from group teaching to individual learning – 86% of parents of BSF school students said it made a big difference, compared to 68%;
• Wider open spaces were also considered by 83% of parents of children attending a new BSF school to make a big difference, compared with 64%;
• Up-to-date IT equipment was thought by nearly all parents interviewed to make a big difference to their child’s education, with 97% of parents whose children attend a BSF school saying it makes a big difference, compared to 90% in non BSF schools;
• Specially designed toilet blocks which help minimise areas where bullying can take place was thought to make a big difference to their child’s education by the majority of parents. Again it was parents with children at BSF schools who were most likely to say that toilets made a big difference (87% compared to 78%);
• Nearly all parents in Leeds [88%] interviewed thought they would prefer to send their child to a recently rebuilt school rather than a school built in the 1950s or 1960s.
This seems to demonstrate to us that this generation of parents, many of whom were educated themselves in buildings which were far from ideal, are hearing from their sons and daughters about the new facilities, new environments, and new ways of learning brought about by BSF – and can see what difference, hopefully, this will make for their futures.
Next steps for BSF
So what next for design in BSF? As you may have heard at our Annual Conference in September, we are continuing to working with the DCSF and CABE to put in place an objective set of criteria to ensure that every school benefits from the highest quality designs that will deliver educational transformation and that no design which fails to exceed this test gets off the drawing board and into construction.
This Minimum Design Standard will take into greater account than ever before the views of the end users – teachers, students, and the views of educationalists as well as the design community. We intend to carry out consultation on the evolving proposals in February/March of next year. We are particularly looking at how we can extend the MDS to post-LEP projects so that we can ensure that quality remains high, and we can feed learning back from these projects back into the programme.
As I mentioned earlier, we have also launched a draft Facilities and Services Output Specification, which is available on the PfS website. We hope this will be easier to understand and simpler to use – in particular the template is intended to be able to be turned into a contract with minimal revision.
Now that a number of BSF schools have been operational for at least a full year, PfS will be supporting and complementing the Post Occupancy Evaluations being carried out through the DQI process to capture the views of the users about what it is like to work and study in their new learning environment, and to feed this back into the programme for later waves to learn from.
And finally, I am hoping that some of you will be joining us this evening as we celebrate the very best of BSF with our first ‘Excellence in BSF Awards’. Design has a strong showing with three categories dedicated to best new design, best remodelled design and most sustainable school.
The judging panels found the 70-plus entries for these awards revelatory in many respects, with the examples of strong partnerships, innovation and creativity. But whoever wins the BSF stars tonight, the real winners for me are the young people. BSF is giving many of them a chance to re-evaluate their futures and what they want to do with their lives – and so all of us deserve a gold star for efforts. I want to leave the last word, therefore, to some of the learners from Allerton High in Leeds and their thoughts and hopes for the future as captured just a few weeks after the new school opened in September.
ENDS
