We held a great seminar on monday at East Manchester Academy discussing the full range of issues connected to school acoustics. This is a topic we’ve looked at quite a bit in the past but it seemed like a good time to find out what changes had happened and will happen to the current guidance [...]
Posts under ‘Architecture’
The James Review – digested
Well – its been a busy final day before the Easter holidays. Nothing like a 105 page government report to test your stamina!. We were asked this afternoon to comment on a BBC report that headlines the ‘failure of the school building system’ but as I said: there is much to be welcomed in the [...]
Free schools – opening up the debate
We are just doing some final edits of video material from Gleeds TV from last year’s British Council for School Environments Annual conference and in particular the debate about Free Schools – with Fiona Millar, Indy Johar, Jon de Maria, Sobia Bashir, Dale Bassett and Pascale Scheurer – is one of the best and most [...]
School environments DO matter
Its been pretty disheartening to see the debate taking place in the media recently that are carrying stories that buildings and school environments don’t make a difference. Despite this view flying in the face of all common sense, the practical experience of teachers and young people, an enormous chunk of evidence from office, retail and [...]
Building Better Schools conference – have your say
Over the next few weeks we are finalising our programme for our BCSE Annual Conference – which this year has the theme: Building Better Schools – academies, free schools and the big society We are delighted to be hosting our conference this year with Manchester City Council who have led the way in thinking big [...]
Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service
Monday’s passing of the Academies Bill in parliament heralded a radical change in the landscape of education in a way not seen for 20 years. As a flagship coalition policy, Academies and Free schools will aim to shift and outperform the old way of delivering education. There are also a number of new elements in [...]
Free schools – connecting the dots
The news has been full of stories about Free Schools recently. We have seen stories that concentrate on parent power and the freedom to set their own curriculum, and in contrast we have seen stories concentrating on how shops such as Woolworths and other buildings will be converted to house these schools. But what has [...]
What you may have missed in June?
It’s been a busy month in the world of school design. Amid the financial uncertainty, a number of key annual industry events took place during the month, including the BCSE Industry Awards – a great evening with a range of inspirational speakers. You can see a full list of the winners here and we’ll be [...]
Buildings that embrace the nature of learning in the 21st century
Money may be tight right now, but there is a huge amount that we can learn from the decisions that were made over the past decade of investment in school building capital project. In preparing for the BCSE 2010 Industry Awards tomorrow night, I was reviewing some of the 2009 winners to see how they [...]
Sustainability in action
Bowbridge Primary in Notts was the winner of BCSE’s ‘Greening the School’ industry award in 2009. As the ‘Zero Carbon Task Force’ seems a distant memory, it is worth remembering what Bowbridge stood out for. The school’s staff and community were involved right from the start of this project so that the new extension could [...]
