Building Schools For The Future

In the post school education sector we are not always well informed about developments in our schools. There is now considerable activity in the school sector with the development of learning (and teaching) space. The UK capital investment in school buildings in 1997 was £700 million. By 2005-06 the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme will be investing capital at the rate of around £5 billion a year in new school buildings. BSF is the biggest government investment to improve the UK's school estates for over 50 years. The aim is to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England over the next 15 years. The BSF programme's vision is to bring about a transformation of 14 to 19 education by building 21st century schools which provide environments that inspire learners.

An important point about BSF is that it is not just a 'buildings' programme. BSF also involves significant investment in information and communication technology that, combined with further investment in staff development, seeks to promote a step-change in the quality of secondary school provision. There is an important general lesson here from the BSF initiative that applies to all phases of education. The co-ordinated development of buildings, ICT and staff is a powerful combination that should be part of the thinking of all major estates developments. 21st century buildings cannot be agnostic to ICT - they must facilitate its use now and in the future - and nor can they ignore that staff need to have the knowledge and skills to capitalize on the opportunities of the resource.

Technology and BSF

There is already more ICT equipment present in schools than there has ever been before and it is starting to bring about the desired transformation of learning and teaching. Children being taught with ICT in new and exciting ways are also learning about ICT and acquiring new skills to enable them to participate in the e-economy. Technology is seen by BSF as a necessity for all children to reach their full potential:

The mission for ICT in schools is:

Such a mission requires that ICT is seen as an integral part of each building project and not separate or bolted on but embedded. A key question posed for Local Education Authorities by the government is 'Does the local authority's vision allow access to ICT as and when it is needed for teaching and learning?' The mantra of anywhere, anytime access to ICT facilities heard frequently throughout education must be served by all new building projects. The BSF programme provides some pointers of some 'must dos' for schools making proposals for new buildings:

• Cabling, equipment and other services must allow true broadband capacity to be delivered to the classroom and school office.
• ICT infrastructure and equipment must allow the use of media-rich learning resources. BSF provision must include appropriate servers and sufficiently powerful PCs to enable use of current and future digital learning materials.
• Level of equipment provided. Personalised/individual/independent learning is inconceivable without access to ICT. ICT provision is essential to develop differentiated, personalised approaches to learning and the aim for BSF schools should therefore be to have sufficient and suitable equipment to allow individual access.
• ICT for management. Data capture, management (MIS) and transfer are key to delivering the personalised learning agenda and to developing a new relationship between the department, partner organisations, local authorities and schools. BSF schools should be supplied with appropriate ICT infrastructure and equipment to enable efficient management and allow those schools to work with the data collected.
• Specialist provision. ICT is a powerful tool for promoting social inclusion and delivering educational opportunity beyond the school gates. BSF ICT provision should include specialist equipment and software and home-to-school links, (and links between schools and hospitals and other locations) to support pupils with special needs and to transcend the need for learning to take place at a fixed physical location and time.

Whilst not an exhaustive list, these provide useful discussion points in planning your project. Although in post-school organisations the need for broadband is less of a discussion and more of a given (provided by SuperJanet5), there are clearly discussions to be had about whether this should be delivered locally through wires or through the air.