Building Schools for the Future in Bournemouth and Poole

The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Programme was introduced in Bournemouth and Poole in 2007, and work began in earnest to plan for the programme in June 2008. BSF aimed to provide Bournemouth and Poole with modern school facilities that meet 21st century standards so students could benefit from new ways of learning and improved facilities. Reorganisation of the special school provision, coupled with integration of the Academies programme, would help the two boroughs to meet the changing circumstances they were facing in the future.  This wave of BSF for Bournemouth and Poole included three Academies, two special schools and five other community schools.

Key challenges for Bournemouth & Poole included working as a truly joint partnership, rather than one borough leading, and this meant bringing together several groups of LA staff who had not worked together before.  This decision had been made in order to present the market with a sufficiently large and therefore attractive programme of investment, and to build on embryonic economies of scale being identified between the two boroughs.  Poole was in the process of dismantling its ‘three tier’ education system with middle schools, moving to a more usual two-tier – primary and secondary – approach.  Finally, this joint partnership was the first in the BSF programme to make explicit the meshing of their Academies programme with the BSF programme, as changes and movements from one site to another made them interconnected.

Cambridge Education has worked with Bournemouth and Poole’s BSF team to develop and deliver the Local Authority Strategy for Change, the individual school Strategies for Change, and the Outline Business Case for this £160million investment programme.

Our team of consultants worked in partnership with schools and the two local authorities to refine and develop their joint strategic vision, the key themes within the Strategy for Change, which outlines Bournemouth and Poole’s vision for secondary education. Additionally, Cambridge Education supported the schools in working with staff, students, governors and other stakeholders to generate inclusive, transformational school visions. 

“Cambridge Education support [to] the schools in writing their individual Strategy for Change has been well received …It has also helped establish thinking around the transformation agenda for schools”
Local Partnerships – Gateway Review

Subsequently, we worked with the schools and technical advisers to refine and develop the overall strategy for the location of all the mainstream and special schools across the two boroughs. This included helping to clarify how many places would be needed for secondary aged pupils and when, and explaining and justifying the changes in the numbers and sizes of schools across the two boroughs – the business case for the Building Schools for the Future programme.

Cambridge Education’s ‘Transformational Design Framework’ tool was used to develop detailed, consistent and creative information packs about the educational approach that each school wished to take, for use by the architects and contractors in planning the proposed new or refurbished schools (the Education Brief for each school). Cambridge Education also led on development of robust and detailed change management plans both for the Local Authorities and for each school, through the use of another bespoke process tool, the ‘Change Management Outcomes Matrix’, developed with Bournemouth and Poole to translate each school’s, and the LAs’, education vision into a series of outcomes which a change management project would need to address.  Each school was then able to identify with its staff a series of change projects which would address each outcome.  Each of these would be bespoke to each school.

Mott MacDonald, Cambridge Education’s parent company, also worked with Bournemouth and Poole to propose a client team structure for a joint authority team which would allow them to maximise the use of their joint resources, benefit from economies of scale, and mesh well with a Local Education Partnership (LEP) which was to be established under the BSF programme.

In March 2010, the BSF approach was deemed inappropriate as a procurement process for Bournemouth and Poole, being of an insufficiently large size; procurement is now taking place using the ‘National Contractors’ Framework’ meaning that a LEP no longer needs to be established.  In these new circumstances, Cambridge Education is continuing to support both Bournemouth and Poole in the procurement process as a client advisor and member of the evaluation team. We also continue to support the schools’ ongoing implementation of their change management plans.

The nature of the project has been complex. Bringing together two authorities, significant reorganisation of the size, number and placement of secondary and special schools across both boroughs, and multiple governance arrangements (including Academies, Trusts and Foundations) has meant the process has included a large number of stakeholders. This, combined with integrating the Academies programme into BSF, meant that Cambridge Education has had to form a strong partnership with the client team to meet its ambitious aspirations and challenging timescales.

”We have developed a strong relationship with CE who we have found to be a company with experience and maturity in depth.”
Barry Watts, Programme Director, Bournemouth and Poole

Cambridge Education added value by:

• Challenging and supporting the client to provide educationally transformational strategies and Design Briefs
• Use of clear process tools to support schools and the authorities through the process
• Strong understanding, experience and expertise in developing change management plans and processes which deliver lasting and transformational change at school level.