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20.01.09 | Kent BSF Launches as National Skills Academy
19.01.09 | LEP1 Wave 4 Design & Education Seminar
Kent BSF Project Launches as National Skills Academy for Construction
Posted: 20.01.09 | Kent Local Education Partnership (LEP) 1 – a long term joint venture between Trillium, KCC, Northgate Education and BSFi - today officially launched Kent LEP 1 National Skills Academy for Construction, which will offer a wide range of apprentice and training opportunities, made possible through the delivery of Kent’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Approval for National Skills Academy for Construction (NSAfC) status was awarded in September 2008 and the programme will be supported by ConstructionSkills and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).
L-R: Mayoress & Mayor of Gravesham; Mark Dance, Cabinet Member for Education Operations, Resources & Skills; Ian Ellis, Chief Executive Office - Trillium; Pupils from Northfleet School for Girls.
Kent’s BSF programme, which is the largest of its kind in the UK, will combine significant capital investment in state-of-the-art buildings and ICT facilities to transform teaching and learning in the county. BSF is the biggest single government investment in improving school buildings for more than 50 years. The aim is to rebuild or renew nearly every secondary school in England over a 10 to 15 year period.
The first phase, costing approximately £600 million, is set to completely refurbish or rebuild ten selected secondary schools in Kent. Trillium has appointed four contractors - Willmott Dixon, Kier, Provian Construction and Verry Construction - to deliver this phase.
Apprenticeship and training outcomes form only part of an agreed schedule of targets which will ensure that the Kent BSF programme delivers more than just buildings. Targets - focusing on value for money, continuous improvement, sustainability, partnership, customer satisfaction and added value - will ensure achievement and continued benefit to the schools and Kent communities.
The Kent LEP 1 National Skills Academy for Construction has required each contractor to enter into further targets in relation to qualifying the existing workforce and developing a skills culture and infrastructure. This additional commitment will support excellence across all sites to the benefit of the county. ConstructionSkills is providing a £40,000 grant to fund a Project Skills Co-ordinator, which will be match-funded by Kent County Council.
Christina Montague, Regional Strategy Adviser, ConstructionSkills South East said:
“The sheer scale and potential of this programme for the construction industry is immense. BSF will follow an approach of up-skilling and accrediting the existing skills of the workforce, as well as providing opportunities for work experience and apprenticeships. In essence, local communities stand to benefit from increased employment, apprenticeships and work placement opportunities.”
Mark Dance, Cabinet Member for Education Operations, Resources and Skills added:
“Building Schools for the Future will help to transform education for future generations. With this initiative, those currently at school who are looking to pursue a career in the construction industry can benefit from practical experience that this world-class programme offers.”
Ian Ellis, CEO, Trillium commented:
“Through the Skills Academy, we will ensure the sharing of skills and best practice across the whole construction team. Support will be offered to all parties in the drive for increased opportunities for anyone seeking work or training in the construction industry. Planning, with positive identification of needs matched to opportunities available, will increase success and achieve additional benefit for school leavers, the long term unemployed and local community members.”
Achieving National Skills Academy for Construction status means that Kent BSF will be part of the National Skills Academy network, a Government initiative led by the LSC. It is designed to put employers in the driving seat and raise the standard of industry training to improve productivity and tackle skills shortages across the UK.
Kier, one of the four contractors, is committed to Kent BSF and the part it is playing in the design and construction of five of the ten schools. Kier is delivering two schools in Broadstairs - Dane Court and St. Georges - both of which have significant new build and refurbishment elements, as well as three new-build schools on existing sites under the PFI initiative – namely, Northfleet Technology College, St. John’s Catholic School and Thamesview School.
Kier Regional Deputy Managing Director, Richard Bush, commented:
“Kier is especially pleased to be involved with the launch of this Skills Academy and will be looking to support its development. We embrace the prospect of being able to assist communities through upskilling and training programmes. As a company that focuses strongly on training and development, not only do we sponsor graduates, a foundation degree programme and vocational training but we have also recently secured two prestigious national awards in recognition of our commitment.”
Verry Construction, one of the four contractors, is involved in the restructuring works at King Ethelbert School which will enhance its status as a specialist school for visual arts. The company is also demolishing the buildings in the poorest condition at Charles Dickens School, with around a third of the school being replaced. The other two-thirds will be refurbished and refreshed to allow Kent Count Council and the school to deliver its new educational vision.
Dave Neiles, Associate Director from Verry Construction explained:
“Since the completion of three highly successful projects delivered under the Kent School PFI, we are delighted to be given the opportunity to provide new education facilities at Charles Dickens and King Ethelbert schools to enrich the lives of those young people that will enjoy the quality of our construction delivery.”
Provian Construction, one of the four contractors, will be working alongside Clague Architects, to substantially refurbish Herne Bay High School. Roger Maycock, Managing Director of Provian Construction explained:
“The works, valuing in the region of £17million, will be carried out over seven carefully managed phases in order to maintain the smooth running of the school. The school is currently a dispersed campus and the BSF programme aims to link the disparate blocks and create new learning zones to compliment the various teaching strategies throughout the school.”
Rob Lambe, Managing Director at Willmott Dixon’s local office in Dartford, said:
“As one of the four contractors, our first projects under the BSF are to transform Northfleet School for Girls and Community College Whitstable. Both involve the creation of new buildings together with extensive alteration and refurbishment of existing buildings to create modern new learning environments for pupils, with completion set for January 2011.”
Notes:
1: ConstructionSkills is the Sector Skills Council for construction, tasked by Government to ensure the UK’s largest industry has the skilled workforce it requires. Working with Government, training providers and employers, it is responsible for ensuring that the industry has enough qualified new entrants and that the existing workforce is fully skilled and qualified, as well as for improving the performance of the industry and the companies within it. For more information visit www.cskills.org
2: About the National Skills Academy for Construction
- 75% of the industry does not do any training, and the training that does happen is not evenly spread across the supply chain.
- To complete a high performing project on budget, on time, and to the satisfaction of their clients, developers and contractors need the right people with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time.
- The benefits of The National Skills Academy for Construction will include:
- more recruits will be encouraged to enter the industry and qualification levels will improve significantly
- it will reach out to the many who are currently not involved in any formal training
- workers will be more motivated and will engage in the training process for longer, creating life-ling learning opportunities
- local people will fill local job vacancies and there will be a constant flow of qualified construction workers across the UK
- the industry’s performance will improve with more projects built on budget, on time and to standard.LEP1 Wave 4 Design & Education Seminar
Posted: 19.01.09 | In preparation for the release of the Wave 4 Invitation to Submit Outline Proposal (ISOP) packs, the Kent Local Education Partnership 1 (KLEP1) hosted a design and education seminar for the contractors and architects who will be responsible for developing plans and proposals for Kent's Wave 4 schools.
Attended by over 100 people, the event focused on the educational vision of of Nurturing Creative & Autonomous Learners, which defines the aims and objectives of the Kent BSF Programme, and the lessons learned from Kent's Wave 3 BSF Programme.
For Attendees:
Copies of the presentations are available below:
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- The Northfleet Technology College Journey *
Presenter: John Hassett, Headteacher
- Introduction to KLEP1
Presenter: Richard Marsh, General Manager (KLEP1)
- Introduction to KCC's Tranformation Agenda - Slides **
Presenter: Bernard Clarke, Secondary Transformation Team
- Developing Design Solutions
Presenters: Andrew Chauvin, Gleeds Advisory | Georgina Frank, Senior Architect (Trillium) | Vincent McDonnell, Managing Director (Prospects)
- Examples from Kent's Wave 3 Programme ***
Presenters: Georgina Frank, Senior Architect (Trillium) | Francis Gallagher, Associate Principal - Director of Education (HKS) | Stephen Coomber, Architect (Hazel McCormack Young LLP) | Matt Hayes, Architect (Lee Evans Partnership LLP).
- SEN in Mainstream and Special Schools
NB: This file is nearly 15mb and may take some time to download depending on the speed of your connection.
- Related Document: Building Bulletin 102: Designing for disabled children and children with special educational needs - Guidance for mainstream and special schools (DCSF, 2009)
Presenters: John Jenkins, SEN Design Champion - Haverstock Associates | Vincent McDonnell, Managing Director (Prospects)
Presenters: Jerry Owens, Secondary Transformation Team ** | Keith McCarthy, Solutions Architect - Northgate Education | Sunil Kumar, Acting ICT Contract Manager - Kent County Council* Some slides involving interactive elements have been removed from this presentation.
** A copy of the videos played during Bernard Clarke's and Jerry Owen's presentations is being sent to all attendees. The videos will also be shortly available through Kent Trust Web.
*** This includes additional presentations that were not included on the day due to time restrictions.South Maidstone Academies Federation Wins National Award
Posted: 26.11.08 | Plans for the South Maidstone Academies Federation won the Best BSF Academy category in the national Excellence in BSF Awards 2008 on 26 November 2008.
The Excellence in BSF Awards recognise best practice in Building Schools for the Future and showcase how this unprecedented programme is already making a real difference to students, teachers and local communities up and down the country.
The Best BSF Award category celebrates excellent partnership working to deliver an Academy. In making their decision, the judging panels were particularly interested in:
- A clear educational vision
- Transformational design
- Evidence of wider 'extended services'
- The partnership approach adopted
- Stakeholder engagement strategy and programme activity; and Sustained value for money.
L-R: Tim Byles, Chief Executive of PfS; Peter Houten, Director of School Formation & Investment Group (DcSF); Gigi Luscombe, Deputy Executive Principal of South Maidstone Academies Federation; Mark Dance, Cabinet Member for Education Operations, Resources & Skills; and Rob Brydon, from the award winning series Gavin and Stacey and Marion and Geoff
Deputy Executive Principal, Gigi Luscombe, who attended the ceremony said:
"We are absolutely delighted to have won this award and to be recognised nationally for our outstanding partnership working."
"This award is a real testament to our staff who have worked incredibly hard with parents, students and governors to provide the best educational opportunities and facilities possible, securing a brighter future for our pupils."
Alongside the Best BSF Academy category, Kent's BSF and Academies Programme was also shortlisted for its plans for The Community College, Whitstable, in the Best Design for a Remodelled School category.
Cabinet Member for Education Operations, Resources and Skills Mark Dance said:
"Both schools did well to be nominated and I am thrilled South Maidstone has beaten off stiff competition to win their category. It’s been a real team effort."
£600m Contract Signed & Sealed
Posted: 27.10.08 | Ambitious plans to transform education in Kent got the green light on 27 October 2008 when KCC reached financial and contractual close on the first phase of its Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.
The signing of the contract between Kent County Council (KCC), Building Schools for the Future Investments (BSFI) and Land Securities Trillium (LST) / Northgate Education (NE), means that construction can now begin to completely rebuild or substantially refurbish the first 10 secondary schools.
KCC will now form a Local Education Partnership (LEP) with LST, NE and BSFI, to manage the delivery of current programme and lead on the development of proposals for a further 25 secondary schools, special schools and pupil referral units in the Gravesham, Thanet and Swale districts. The contract has an estimated capital spend of almost £600million.
The contract and creation of the LEP represents a major milestone for Kent's far-reaching plans to combine significant capital investment in state-of-the-art buildings and ICT facilities with a bold educational vision to transform teaching and learning and put schools at the heart of their community. Kent's overall BSF Programme, the largest of the national initiative, is worth an estimated £1.8billion.
The first 10 schools to be transformed in Kent are:
- Charles Dickens School, Broadstairs
- Community College Whitstable, Whitstable
- Dane Court Grammar School, Broadstairs
- Herne Bay High School, Herne Bay
- King Ethelbert School, Birchington
- Northfleet School for Girls, Gravesend
- Northfleet Technology College, Gravesend
- St George's CE Foundation School, Broadstairs
- St John's Catholic Comprehensive School, Gravesend
- Thamesview School, Gravesend
Cabinet Member for Education Operations, Resources & Skills Mark Dance said:
"The signing of this contract marks an historic day for education in Kent. The Building Schools for the Future programme will see radical transformation of school buildings in the county.
"State of the art technology, fantastic learning and teaching environments and unrivalled community facilities will have a huge impact on generations to come. This is an enormously exciting time."
KCC Managing Director for Children, Families & Education Graham Badman said:
"The timing of this contract marks the start, not the end of the process. This process will give Kent and other authorities a once in a lifetime opportunity not just to transform the schools through rebuilding but to create the circumstances that will determine a 21st Century curriculum, where the needs and ability of the learner are central to the school curriculum. True personalisation is now a reality."
Chief Executive at Land Securities Trillium Ian Ellis added:
"The Kent BSF project is a transformational partnership which will benefit generations of students by creating fully inclusive, flexible learning spaces with groundbreaking information and communications technology infrastructure. The wider local community will also benefit from increased employment opportunities, apprenticeships and work placements within the new schools."
Tim Byles, Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools, the government agency responsible for delivery of the BSF programme across England, said:
"As the largest BSF scheme to reach financial close to date, today marks an important milestone not just for Kent, but for the national BSF programme. At its heart, BSF is about transforming education and improving the life chances for all young people, and I look forward to charting the progress of this first phase of Kent's ambitious scheme."
Partnerships with Schools Response to Guardian BSF Item
Posted: 16.04.08 | Partnership for Schools (PfS), the delivery agency and national programme manager for BSF, responded strongly to a recent article in the Guardian which stated that:
"Ministers were last night accused of watering down a £45bn pledge to rebuild every state school in the country by setting out substantial reforms to the refurbishment programme which will fast-track four new schools under every local authority.
Plans to rebuild the entire school estate would be shelved and replaced with a speeded up version to prioritise a handful of new schools in each area, under proposals made by ministers." 1
The article followed the publication of a DCSF consultation on the national BSF Programme which included proposals to accelerate entry for Waves 7-15.
In response to the item, PfS stated that:
- The BSF programme is not being 'shelved' as the Guardian article claims, nor is it being 'watered down'. There is absolutely no question of the programme being scaled back.
- The Government remains fully committed to BSF as its flagship programme and all secondary schools will be rebuilt or renewed during the lifetime of the programme.
- The consultation is not about whether the programme continues, but how. The proposals consult on the idea of bringing in all local authorities sooner, with smaller groups of schools to begin with (4 – 5 schools). The remainder of the authorities’ schools will be rebuilt or refurbished later in the programme.
- By 2020, we expect that most local authorities will have completed their full BSF programme, with the remainder having most of their schools completed and be in the final stages of renewing their full estate.
Colleagues should note that the consultation that generated the Guardian article relates to Waves 7-15 of the national programme. Kent has already secured more funding than any other LA for Waves 3-6 of the programme and is progressing much faster. Kent is fully committed to BSF and our profile within the overall programme means that we are well placed, and actively engaged in pressing for as much BSF investment as possible.
To get a clearer understanding of the direction the DCSF is thinking of heading, please take your time to review the consultation document. Full details, including how you can respond, are available through the following link: BSF & Academies Consultation Section
1 Ministers shelve £45bn plan to rebuild every state school by 2020 . Polly Curtis, Education Correspondent. 10 March 2008.
Return to MenuKCC Annouces First BSF Schools Contract
Posted: 17.12.08 | Land Securities Trillium & Northgate Information Solutions (LST-NIS) has been announced as Kent County Council’s preferred bidder to deliver the first phase of Kent's £1.8 billion Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.
The announcement represents the launch of a new £600 million public private partnership between KCC, LST-NIS and Partnerships for Schools (PfS) to refurbish or rebuild secondary schools and transform the delivery of education in the Gravesham, Swale and Thanet districts by 2014.
LST&NIS was chosen as Kent’s preferred bidder after a stringent selection and scoring process in line with European Union procurement rules.
Paul Carter, Leader of KCC, said:
"This is an exciting time. The need to fundamentally re-design our secondary schools has never been greater. Today’s learners have inherited yesterday’s schools and although the world has changed dramatically, school buildings and organisations have largely stayed the same.
"We are entering into a partnership committed to transforming the way secondary education is delivered. Not only will it transform buildings, it will also make the curriculum more innovative and exciting."
Grahame Badman, Managing Director of Children, Families & Education, said:
"In partnership with LST-NIS, we aim to develop virtual and physical environments in which access to learning can occur anytime or anyplace and provide an education which is relevant to the needs of the contemporary learner as well as to the demands of the current and emerging economy.
"This is a once in a generation opportunity to invest in innovative solutions for future secondary school provision, challenging perceptions of what schools should offer and where they should be located."
Ian Skinmore, LST-NIS Bid Director said:
"We are pleased to now begin this exciting project and we are sure that the end results will be enjoyed for many generations to come. It is an ambitious scheme and we are confident we well deliver first class results to help better educate the students."
KCC will now form a Local Education Partnership (LEP) with LST-NIS and PfS (via Building Schools for the Future Investments). This will become the body responsible for delivering the first phase of Kent’s ambitious BSF programme. The LEP will be a long-term partnership that undertakes to build or refurbish schools and maintain them properly over their lifetime.
Tim Byles, PfS Chief Executive, said:
"We congratulate Kent on nominating their selected bidder, which is great news for the national BSF programme and even better news for the learners and communities of Kent. The new and improved buildings, facilities and technology will have an enormous impact on education and the life chances of every child in the area."
KCC intends to establish two more LEPs to transform secondary education in Kent’s remaining districts.
