School buildings

[duc748]

Not an area of MN I ever venture into, but I just read this piece in the NS (doubtless can be archived), and thought Mumsnetters would be interested. I find it absolutely scandalous! Brand-new schools!

https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-report/2023/11/demolition-britain-newbuild-schools-too-dangerous

Brief extract:

Tuesday 14 November should have been a normal school day. For pupils at the Sir Frederick Gibberd College in Harlow, Essex, however, it was the first time they’d been into their school in over two weeks.
Since the start of the academic year, all pupils (apart from year sevens) at the school have missed out on the best part of a month of in-person teaching. They have been living their own private lockdown, thanks to a £3bn scandal at the heart of government.
On Monday 21 August, as the long summer break stretched to a close, parents were looking ahead to the start of term in two weeks, wrapping up family holidays and childcare plans. But that day they received a letter from Dee Conlon, the headteacher, and Helena Mills, chief executive of the school’s trust, BMAT Education: the school would no longer open on 6 September. No new date was confirmed.
The main building and sports hall had been closed, with immediate effect, on instruction from the Department for Education (DfE). Cracks had appeared in the walls, and the gym had flooded. Inspections over Easter by the department found such poor workmanship that it would impact “the longevity of the buildings”, structural defects and fire safety concerns. The buildings were deemed too weak to withstand high winds, major snowfall or a vehicle collision.

The last sentence tells me that these buildings (it's not the only one) were not built in line with the Building Regs and other legislation. That schools two or less years old should be closed is disgraceful. A case of follow the money, no doubt.

Why "schools" plural? Looks like one school to me, though with multiple buildings.

Here is the BBC version: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-67587671

Why "schools" plural?

Extract:

Harlow’s children aren’t the only ones. As the story broke over the summer that hundreds of older schools built with unsafe concrete would have to close, another scandal was hitting newly built academies around the country.
In Cornwall, Newquay Primary Academy (begun in 2021 and meant to open that year) had to be torn down and started again, as did Launceston Primary School (also 2021). Sky Academy, a new school planned to open this year at the Eden Project, was described in the trade press as “flattened before it was finished”. Buckton Fields Primary School in Northampton (completed 2021) and Haygrove School in Somerset (2020) have been forced to close their buildings while awaiting demolition decisions.
In all, nearly 5,000 pupils have been displaced, stuck at home, or left without a prospective school place while parents and staff are in limbo. None of the schools I’ve heard from have seen their inspection reports.

Thanks. Your New Statesman links are behind a paywall.

Who signs of on the plans?

Is it the local council? Because that would explain why there's a cluster in Cornwall

I assumed the NS link was archivable. But yeah, not just one school. This just sounds incredible to me.

Some of the difficulties are contractors going bankrupt. Definite issues in Cornwall.

Most of these schools are academies using cheap modular buildings. They are fast tracked planning permission. Yes, they need BR approval. Depends if you think BR approval means much. They are not structural engineers. Schools are not difficult buildings to design as they are low level, or construct, but the DofE wants them built cheaply. They probably used design and build so got cheap rubbish. Pay more and you might afford architects and engineers!

And not just schools, it seems. And much of it down to one particular dodgy 'modular build' company.

The DfE uses pre-approved contractors for school building projects. I guess a rogue contractor got approved and will hopefully now be unapproved.

(Fwiw, my kids go to a new build school and it's fabulous).

@trebled They won’t be approved if they are bankrupt!

The bigger picture is taking school design away from LA architects annd engineers annd putting it into the hands of design and build companies. We had some poor buildings in the 60/70s (using RAAC concrete) but after that we had very good school buildings. Along come academies, which all new schools are, and we get warehouse modular buildings converted to school use. Cheap but with flaws.

Why do you think LA architects and engineers are better? Sounds like you're riding a political hobby horse.

Presumably most of the school buildings that were revealed in August to have used dodgy RAAC concrete were LA-built schools!

One rogue company doesn't mean the entire system is broken.

@trebled LA employed professional staff had years of collective experience in designing schools. They worked closely with the LA Education Departments who commissioned the work. It’s not political at all. Labour and Conservative LAs worked in the same way. Once central government took control, it ceased to have any local design input at all. The usual issues with central government then come into play. Remote, poor control of costs, using approved contractors who are not vetted properly, and just commissioning very average buildings due to little architectural input. Any building that’s not fit for purpose is a waste of money.

RAAC was used to cut costs. The big problem with RAAC was ingress of water. Not all RAAC is dangerous. Many LAs didn’t use RAAC which is why there were clusters of failures in the LAs that did. It was not used everywhere.

Schools are now universally system built “warehouses” for dc. Some are dressed up better than others. One I know of has not even had its approach landscaped so is uninviting and might as well be a warehouse for learning. Comparing it to the lovely sen school up the road and anyone can see which building is better.

What is the point of having school building expertise concentrated in individual LA's when each LA only builds a new school occasionally?

Where do you think the "professional staff" with "years of collective experience" work now? They either work centrally for the Education Funding Agency, or they work for construction companies that work regionally or nationally. Same people, different model.

If LA's want buildings that are attractive then they need to steer that via their planning policies. That's what happened with my children's school - the construction company simply would not have got something nasty-looking past the planners. It is designed to blend in with its environment, with green (i.e. planted) walls, a green roof, extensive landscaping, hundreds of new trees, etc.

What’s happening to the current staff and students? The BBC article says the new school will be ready in 2027. What happens until then?

The ‘news’ section of the school website was last updated in Sept.

Most retired! It’s been centralised for ages. Also County Councils build more than schools. However we cannot go back but mostly new schools are not great. They look like factories or warehouses with windows.

Planning has nothing whatever to do with design. Just look at housing estates. I don’t know why anyone thinks planners are arbiters of good design. Clearly nothing to do with them.

70% of the buildings at DDs school have been closed off since start of academic year. Many children had zero face to face education up to have term. Now on rota. It's an absolute disgrace.

Y10 students have had less than 50% of their lessons at all. Expected to teach themselves at home from PPT docs they have to download.

Y11 trying to do GCSE mock exams in freezing sports hall after having had no practical teaching since July.

Why the appalling situation of school buildings falling down isn't being covered nationally, I do not know!

And yes... it's like being in our own lockdown! And no one seems to care!

They were all retirement age were they? No, of course they weren't. You're living in cloud cuckoo land.

There have always been school buildings that were badly built - some by their LA and, more recently, some by the Education Funding Agency. There is no academy versus maintained-school point to be made here. You could argue that the Labour Governments' flagship "Building Schools for the Future" programme or PFI schemes were better than the current school building framework, but others would disagree. We have examples of both of the former in our area, and they have their flaws. We also have recent examples of the latter - and if they have flaws, they haven't emerged yet.

Believe me I’m not. All new school buildings are government funded and academies. There are no LA schools. Most LA schools where I live were very good buildings that have lasted. Obviously some LAs were crap but not all. You cannot get away from cheap clad buildings are not as robust as brick built ones. Very few new schools are much more than “sheds” adapted into schools. PFI was a gravy train as everyone knows. Hugely expensive.

My DH’s company has had lots of work inspecting crap buildings. Also no one company took on the architects. They tended to disperse. Architects can do more than design schools but expertise was lost. Engineers tended to divert to road scheme appraisals. Generally though, centralised design and build commissioning and oversight doesn’t provide a great product for dc.

Why stop at schools? Our hospital has a brand new maternity building- its gonna be knocked down in spring/ summer as unsafe.

Sorry no link as it's not news worthy- yet!

It's not just schools. That was the point of the original link.

Very few new schools are much more than “sheds” adapted into schools

I can assure you, the new-build my children are in is no "shed". 🤣 Nor are any of the other new-builds I've seen.

@trebled You don’t know what “shed”
means in building terms do you? Glad you like your school but many others and similar design and build ones are poor.

It means rectangular in shape, a box-like template, and it's meant disparagingly. And yet it enables schools to be built efficiently, and there is flexibility on how the "boxes" are fitted together to mould to the space, and flexibility on the finish, and new-build schools have state-of-the art energy efficiency, so they cost less to run.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with one construction firm using sub-standard materials. You're digressing on your hobby horse.

@trebled Shed? It really doesn’t mean that. Never mind. Build efficiently? Really? And the cost to put them right is? Are you paid by a design and build company?

Are you paid by a design and build company?

No, and I'm not influenced by a cynical DH who "has had lots of work inspecting crap buildings" either. 🙂 But I do have first hand experience of watching a very nice new school being built, including talking to people from the construction company, watching the planning process, etc. There are other new schools in my area too, and they're also of good quality.