Schools and learning

A more in-depth introduction to Building Schools for the Future

The National Context

Building Schools for the Future (BSF) represents a new approach to capital investment. It is bringing together significant investment (circa £45bn) in buildings and in ICT (Information and Communications Technology) over the coming years to support educational reform.
Through this investment, BSF aims to drive reform – such as new options at 14-19 , provision for special needs , personalised learning, workforce remodelling and extended schools .

The Local Context

In Hertfordshire there are 82 secondary and middle-deemed secondary schools and 25 secondary and all-age special schools that they have been split into seven phases (please follow the link to the map from the BSF home page) each of circa £150m, totaling over £1bn.
The first phase is Stevenage, which comprises seven secondary schools, three special schools and an Educational Support Centre (ESC).

The Process

Vision of Learning for the Future – The first part of the BSF process involves getting together all the schools, partners and stakeholders and identifying what we would like to achieve through BSF. On the basis that any new school will be required to support learning over the next 30 years at least - what will society be like then? What are the skills, qualities and attributes that a member of that society will need in order to participate and contribute? What is the best environment/arrangements to equip young people with those skills, qualities and attributes? The visioning process will first occur across the whole of Hertfordshire to produce a set of principles that will form the core of the HCC BSF vision. Then as the phases (geographical areas) across HCC come on line for funding, this HCC vision will be applied to the local context and developed and refined to reflect local issues. This will then be cascaded down to each individual school to develop their own complementary but school specific vision to be delivered through BSF.

Strategy for Change – Once the vision has been agreed, this has to be considered in terms of the type of facilities that are required to deliver the vision. This will take into account the existing school accommodation and opportunities presented for development. This will produce a Strategy for Change document.

Outline Business Case – At this stage the Strategy for Change has to be worked up into an OBC, which will consider the feasibility and delivery of the whole programme. This involves producing costed feasibility design solutions that could deliver the SfC and consideration of the contractual arrangements, the role of all partners. It is this document that will determine how the programme will move forward i.e. the investment decision is made here.

Procurement – This is the procurement phase where HCC will go to the market to seek a private sector partner to deliver the HCC BSF programme over the following 12 years as each phase comes on line.

Local Education Partnership (LEP) – This is when the LEP is formed. The LEP will comprise 10% share owned by HCC, 80% share owned by the private sector partner and Partnerships for Schools (PfS) who will own 10%.