Southampton’s BSF programme will be delivered in two phases. The first phase is worth about £100m in construction and £10.5m in ICT managed services. It will focus on five schools: Bitterne Park School, Chamberlayne College for the Arts, St George Catholic College, The Sholing Technology College and Upper Shirley High School.

The programme aims to:

• Provide a broader curriculum, improve learning and teaching, and raise the standards achieved by all children.
• Improve attendance and behaviour.
• Increase the number of 16-year-olds staying on in education, training and employment.
• Enhance facilities and support for children with learning difficulties, and those who are vulnerable and/or underachieving.
• Widen the range of support for children with special educational needs, and reduce the numbers of students educated in special schools or in out-of-city provision.
• It also intends to create new facilities for communities, and extend schools’ services to the wider community, including better facilities for PE and sport.

Challenges/Achievements

Appleyards is advising on the development of the City Council’s Strategy for Change (SfC) Parts 1 and 2 (Part 1 was submitted ahead of schedule and approved by Partnerships for Schools and the DCSF). This has involved working with the Council’s School Improvement Team and Policy Leads in order to articulate their key priorities for education transformation across the City and what this means for key policy developments including: improving choice, diversity and access, personalising learning, ICT, the 14-19 agenda, support for underperforming schools and groups, SEN and inclusion, extended services, sustainability, KPIs and change management.

As part of the development of the SfC Part 2, our Education Lead has supported the LA officers in developing detailed appendices setting out what they will actually do to effect the required transformational change across all these key policy areas, and bringing in knowledge and experience of innovative ideas/practice and designs from other schools/LAs.

We have also provided education support and challenge to wave 6a schools in order to help them develop their individual school SfCs which will inform how their schools’ individual designs are developed and set out their own plans for improvement. As part of this we have considered the design implications, in light of the level of new build/remodelling required and solutions for minimising disruption during the construction phases. Our team will continue to support the LA through to OBC completion and the procurement phase.