Building Schools for the Future

Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is the government's programme for rebuilding and renewing secondary schools throughout England. The aim is to provide all secondary schools with world-class learning environments, including those that provide for children with special educational needs.

The government is rolling out this programme across the 150 or so local authorities in England over a number of years, and Slough was recently asked to send in an application for participating in the next phase of BSF investment. A copy of our submission can be viewed below.

The amount the Council would receive is in the order of £80 million. There is, however, an overall limit on the amount of government funding available, and a large number of other local authorities have also been asked to make applications for this funding. We expect to hear whether Slough is to receive this funding before the end of April. If not, we understand we would be able to re-apply for the next phase – starting in September 2010.

Our submission lists the schools to benefit from this first phase of investment. These are Baylis, Slough and Eton, St Josephs, Wexham, and Haybrook College.

The funding will also provide for significant investment in ICT, and so we have asked for this same level of ICT funding for our 2 secondary schools that have recently been rebuilt (Beechwood and Arbour Vale).

In our submission, we have explained how the investment in buildings and ICT will enable us to realise our ambitious targets for improving on the current standards of educational provision and achievement. This includes renewing, remodelling, and extending existing school buildings, as well as enhancing facilities for community use of schools, PE and sport, and for working with other agencies in providing services for children and their families.

We want to engage with staff, governors, pupils, and parents of our schools, as well as with key partners and the wider community, on how to make the most of this investment, and achieve the best outcomes and buildings for our schools. We will be setting up meetings and using our BSF website to keep you up-to-date with progress, and to seek your views on educational provision in the borough, and how we can improve this through the design of our school buildings and provision of ICT.

This will help us to produce the local authority BSF Strategy for Change (schools will also need to develop their own, individual BSF Strategies for Change).  The next steps would then be to produce a Business Case and select a company to build our schools and provide the ICT. If all this went to plan, it would mean that construction work started in early 2013.

We hope this gives you the key information on this exciting possibility for major investment in our schools. Should, though, you have any questions about our BSF plans, please do not hesitate to contact Tony Madden on tony.madden@slough.gov.uk.