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Wolverhampton City Council's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme will deliver 26 schools in four phases over the next four years. It is a long-term programme of investment and change providing around £270m of funding to transform education for secondary age students by providing 21st century learning environments that engage and inspire young people, their teachers and the wider community. It incorporates the modernisation of school buildings, facilities and ICT to support the development of world class teaching and community provision for every school with secondary age students in the city.

Eight schools have been or are being delivered in the sample and first phases of the programme, primarily through new build but also via refurbishment and remodelling.

The Wolverhampton LEP, comprising Wolverhampton City Council, Building Schools for the Future Investments LLP (BSFI) and Carillion, is delivering the programme. Capita Symonds is providing full multidisciplinary services including educational strategy, building design, architectural and engineering.

The schools involved in Phase 2 of the programme have also recently been announced.

Tettenhall Learning Community

This project, the first to begin under the Wolverhampton BSF programme, comprises the redevelopment of King’s Church of.England. Secondary School and the construction of a new Special Educational Needs (SEN) school – Tettenhall Wood School.

Designed by Capita Symonds, the redeveloped Secondary School, which specialises in the visual arts and sports with science, will cater for 900 students aged 11-18. Faith-based, with an inclusive Christian ethos, the school will be co-located with Tettenhall Wood School, a 90-place special school for students aged 4-18 with Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC). Though the schools will essentially operate independently, they will share some facilities as well as renewable energy provision.

Set into an attractive residential area of to the west of Wolverhampton, with many areas of mature landscape and excellent views across attractive countryside to the south, there is much for the new Learning Community’s design to engage with - in contrast to the existing building accommodation of The King’s Church of.England School which effectively turns it back on the surrounding landscape.

The Secondary School’s design aims to express strongly its specialisms in visual arts, and sports with science; its Christian ethos; and its developed commitment to co-location. Each of the specialisms has a ground floor presence while the main entrance foyer is conceived as an art gallery and connected directly with art class spaces which give onto an external covered art terrace overlooking the ‘green heart’ of the school - a new garden space embracing an existing copse of trees.

New-build accommodation has been thoughtfully positioned to create a cohesive and logical school plan -essentially teaching accommodation has been planned to wrap around two sides of the ‘green heart’. By this arrangement of spaces, each of the four zones required by the school has a distinct and clear expression. The creative zone occupies the northern wing of the school encompassing the hall and sports areas, and addresses both Tettenhall Wood and the social centre of the school. The practical zone sits entirely on the ground floor of the retained three storey teaching wing and the refurbished newer accommodation to the south. The world zone is located on the first floor of the re-modelled three-storey teaching wing, with the work zone on the second floor. Since each of these zones is smaller than the zone below, the accommodation is pulled back, allowing each zone to have roof terrace for outdoor classroom spaces.

The existing performance hall is also to be refurbished to provide a high-quality auditorium with the removal of the stage and the installation of a series of sliding-folding doors allowing a wide range of performance configurations to be provided.

The Tettenhall Wood School, meanwhile, features designated spaces for Speech and Language therapists, educational psychologists and other professionals necessary to meet the needs of individual students and their families.

The commitment to co-location is expressed in various ways. First there is a direct link from one school to the other. From the main entrance of the Secondary School the heart space can directly be seen straight in front, with a covered external route along a colonnaded walk to the north side of the new ‘green heart’ and under the gallery of the contemplation courtyard. This courtyard acts as a reflective space between the two schools, for use by either school or both together with co-location activities. For example, the Secondary School’s dance/drama space opens onto the courtyard allowing small scale performances to be undertaken with the audience sitting in the courtyard or observing from the gallery above.

Extended and community use has also been facilitated by the design approach. The layout of the Secondary School allows for convenient community access to the hall spaces, dining areas, sports facilities including the swimming pool and the lecture theatre. The layout of Tettenhall Wood also facilitates convenient community access to the therapy suite and to the hydrotherapy pool, water room and sensory integration rooms. The therapy suite can be accessed without entering the ground floor accommodation of the school. Public, privileged and private spaces have been sensibly arranged.

The design process for the Tettenhall Learning Community involved extensive consultation with the senior leadership team of each school, technical and educational advisors from Wolverhampton City Council, students, and teachers. These discussions were also supported by more formal evaluations, including very positive CABE reviews and DQI sessions.

Value: £25m
Services: Architecture, FFE and interior design, structures, civils, m&e, acoustics, landscape, ecology, executive design advice and security services
Start/Completion: 2009-2012

Wednesfield High School, Wolverhampton

This is a major refurbishment of a 900 place high school with a ‘STEM’ specialism: science, technology, engineering and maths.

New-build elements have been carefully inserted to provide a series of learning courtyards, bookended with a new sports pavilion. A dramatic new two-storey STEM block faces the main road to display to the wider community the imaginative learning opportunities which will be available both for school students and other learners.

The learning courtyards will provide a variety of places for quiet study and reflection as well as socialisation, and will be complemented by a wide range of sports facilities and a series of ‘back gardens’ directly accessed off ground floor class spaces. These gardens will provide outdoor classrooms spaces related to the nature of each class base (for instance the food technology classroom accesses directly onto an allotment garden) and will be developed into detail in collaboration with the Student Council.

The existing concrete framed buildings will benefit from a major refurbishment, with the creation of floor voids to create double height mulit-use home bases and a series of café and group study spaces to create a more diverse learning environment in keeping with the aspirational learning programme of the school.

The design proposals involve a mix of light refurbishment, remodelling and new build elements to part of the existing structure.

The new build structural grid will be largely dictated by classroom layouts and/or the architects feature elevation, while the proposed ‘stem’ block will also link into the existing floor levels which will determine the structural zone allowable.

The current solution is a composite steel frame with precast floor units and a lightweight roof. This satisfies the structural zone limitations and provides a lightweight solution which will minimise substructure works and temporary decant due to the speed of erection.

The project is due to start on site in February 2011.

Value: £14.2m
Services: Architecture, structures, civils, m&e, acoustics, landscape, ecology, executive design advice, security services, FFE and interior design,
Start/Completion: 2009-2012

South Wolverhampton and Bilston Academy

This 1200 place new-build academy in an economically deprived area to the south of Wolverhampton will reflect the extremely ambitious and innovative curriculum with an imaginative and bold design approach.

The academy, which is co-sponsored by Wolverhampton University, Wolverhampton College and Wovlerhampton City Council, has an engineering specialism. The learning approach places a great emphasis on skills and the brief required the development of four learning zones: Newton’s Apple, Global Gateway, The Boardroom, and The Lifepod, with a mix of cellular and specialist accommodation wrapping around large open-planned skill zone areas.

The design provides a floor level to each of the four learning zones; on each level class-bases wrap around a more open central area, with a series of voids opening up double height and triple height top-lit spaces interspersed with centralised accommodation: lecture theatre, hall and café spaces. The main entrance is at first floor level, working with the slope of the site, providing views from the entrance foyer down into the dramatic double height engineering hall. Platforms at different levels provide exciting views between differing floor levels, whilst wide internal staircases linking between floors provide both additional informal lecture areas and intuitive wayfinding.

Each skill zone is being developed to have a distinctive flavour, so that students will enjoy a wide range of learning experiences and environments. In the Global Gateway for instance, they will be able to use a ‘Skype-Pod’ cinema space for immersive experiences of differing environments across the world.

The concept of interlinked accessible platforms has been extended externally to provide an excellent range of external sports, learning and recreation spaces for the students.

An ambitious public art programme has been included within the project proposals, to engage both students and renowned artists in a series of interventions to celebrate the historical significance of the industrial heritage of the site and local area.

Value: £24m
Services: Architecture, structures, civils, m&e, acoustics, ecology, landscape, executive design advice, security services, FFE and interior design,
Start/Completion: 2009-2012

Highfields and Penn Fields Schools

This sample school comprises the creation of a new campus housing both Highfields Science Specialist School and Penn Fields School which replaces the existing Highfields School on the site while co-locating it with Penn Fields Special Needs School from another part of Wolverhampton.

Both schools will be physically linked and will also collaborate in areas such as sports, specialist performance spaces and science resources.

Following the completion of a structural option study, a post tensioned concrete frame is proposed for the main school buildings. This provides the necessary thermal mass and a flat soffit to facilitate simple service installation and natural ventilation. The larger spaces such as the sports halls, performance halls and the lecture theatre will be framed in steel with cellform plate girders supporting the roof deck. These girders maximise the material efficiency and enable service integration within the structural zone.

Value: £46m
Services: structures, civils, m&e, acoustics, ecology, landscape, executive design advice, security services, FFE and interior design,
Start/Completion: July 2010 – February 2012

Coppice Performing Arts School

Coppice Performing Arts School will get an iconic, state-of-the-art new theatre and performance space to promote performances to parents and the wider community, a new sports hall with its own dedicated community entrance, and a courtyard to improve access to different parts of the school. The project comprises of 50% refurbishment and 50% new build and started on site in February 2011.

Value: £17m
Services: structures, civils, m&e, acoustics, ecology, executive design advice, security services, FFE and interior design,
Start/Completion: July 2010 – February 2012

Braybrook Pupil Referral Unit

The Braybrook Centre will have a brand new sports hall and additional green space, meaning pupils will no longer have to go to another site to take part in sports. These new facilities will also be available for community use.

Value: £1.8m
Services: structures, civils, m&e, acoustics, ecology, executive design advice, security services, FFE and interior design,
Start/Completion: 2010-2011