After much wrangling, the build phase of our BSF project at the City of Leicester College finally stated up in April of this year, and is scheduled to be completed by October 2013. Below right you can see the first steels going up for the Business and the Design & Technogy Hub.
 Digging Commences – April 2012 |
 Work in Progress – June 2012 |
We have received some 3D visualisations of the current plans for The City of Leicester College from Miller Consortium (see the post “Latest Floor Plans – circulated for discussion”).
These begin to give a much clearer vision of the character of the proposed new build.
Vehicular Approach to the new building
Below are some more views – click on the thumbnails to get a better look of the current design for TCOLC!
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 Entrance |
 Foyer Section |
 Dining Terrace |
Vehicular Approach |
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 Overview |
 Ariel View |
After some initial feedback from our staff, Miller have produced a first draft of the proposed new school building.
The decision was made to place the new school at the “Wyvern” end of the school plot. This decision along with the need to build around existing structures has dictated the shape of the new build – a capital T with 3 additional wings placed diagonally from the “down stroke”, to catch the best of the sun. The proposed structure has rooming arranged over 3 floors, although 1 floor is “lower ground” and is much smaller than the other 2.
I have attached the architect’s draft floor plans. These plans will be discussed next week in faculty meetings, and comments fed back to Miller.
Staff this week have also been asked to complete a “pre-occupancy” survey, to gauge their opinion of our current situation. If the rest of the staff respond anything like mine, there will be many “poor” and “inadequate” responses! Our present buildings are crumbling away and present many obstacles to good teaching and learning. The sooner we start building the better!
TCOLC SK001 Rev A Lower Ground Floor Plan
The College has drafted what it hopes is its final Accommodation Schedule – the document that details exactly how many rooms in each part of the building and its size in square metres. The total footprint of the proposed build is 13,546 sq m. From this document, the Architects can start designing the actual building.
From the schedule, it is easy to make out the most important design aspect of the new building – that the school will be arranged in paired faculty hubs around large independent work areas.
For instance, Mathematics will be paired with ICT and each will have a suite of rooms located around an independant work area totalling 200 sq metres (equivalent to about 4 standard classrooms). This pattern is repeated through the other hubs. Additionally there will be a staff work area, meeting room and office space in each hub to house Faculty heads, CLT and AchCos.
The faculty pairings for each hub are:
Compared to the original plans from 2005, it seems that the Central area about which the hubs were arranged has shrunk, and the space redistributed within the hubs – the Expressive Arts / Humanities and Design / Business hubs in particular swelling to about twice the size of the others hubs. Although I imagine these areas will be placed towards the centre of the building, allowing them to be zoned for day/night use.
The schedule details quite large classrooms compared to some of the phase 1 schools – with the majority at around 60 square metres each. This is significantly larger than the teaching spaces presently in Gill (around 54 sq metres) Wyvern (around 48 sq metres). There are some smaller classrooms though to cater for smaller groups, and some are planned to be partitioned to make larger teaching spaces as and when required.
The College was told it needed to include a space for a new sports hall in the plans, despite already having a sports hall. BSF rules and regs means that whilst there is no reason to think that the College could not continue to use the Sports Hall it shares with the community, there is no guarantee the agreement will last 25 years. As such, a Sports Hall sized shape will be included, which will be subdivided into a gym and dance studio.
The full Accommodation Schedule – February 2010 is attached here.
This is the second report from the recent BSF Champions visit to Moscow. I will be posting more as and when I get around to it.
Students talk about desert islands at School #1298, Moscow
Each class in the Moscow schools we visited were around the same size as ours – between 27 and 30 students. However, for core subjects such as Maths, Russian Language, Sciences, and ICT, these groups were always split in half so that there were no more than 15 in each group. The smallest teaching groups were reserved for the teaching of English (as a foreign language) where classes were divided into 3, so that each group had no more than 10 students. English Language teachers are consequently much in demand in Russian schools. As pay rates are set by individual head teachers, MFL teachers are often are paid better than other subject teachers!
Teaching groups are never divided by ability – we saw no evidence of setting in any school we visited (with the exception of PE – more on this in a future report!). However, students need to reach a certain level of competency before moving on to the next year. Students not making this grade are kept back and repeat the year in the same grade, much like in the USA. There are also “advanced” courses that only more able students can follow.
The small classes mirrored Moscow’s small schools. The schools we visited ranged between 300-600 students, with 550 students being the standard size. This gave schools a homely feel, and it could also be felt in the positive relationships between staff and students, as the teachers knew and had taught most of the students.
Students at School #1920 Moscow perform "little red riding hood"
The teaching of English Language was a real strength in the schools we visited. I saw some great lessons, clearly demonstrating the confidence of the Russian students which was in evidence throughout our visit, and the positive relationships between students and with their teacher. The level of proficiency in English is also very high.
Below are more photos from various lessons with small class sizes…
The Leicester City BSF Champions group visited the “Schools In” exhibition, launched today at Rufford Abbey Country Park.
The exhibition showcases the creative ideas of students at seven BSF schools in Nottinghamshire, working with artists and architects to help realise their visions for their future school. Additionally, students from Magnus Church of England School performed a dramatic piece, outlining their views on their present school facilities and their hopes for the school after BSF.
The exhibition continues at the Gallery until 14th March.
Despite some recent scaremongering in the local press, our BSF bid has been accepted by Government and the College is now fully engaged in the process of developing and updating plans and designs for the new build.
The College plans continue to centre around a total rebuild of the school – the new building catering for 1200 11-16 students and a further 370 sixth-form students. We are currently working on the accommodation schedule – the number and size of all the classrooms and facilities. Below is a little sample of the schedule for the maths faculty. The full draft accommodation schedule can be viewed as a separate pdf.
This is very much a draft and is currently being chopped and changed daily (hourly?). It does, however, give an idea of the complexity and detail that needs to go into the plans. I can imagine there will be quite a lot of horse-trading over the next few weeks as the plans get condensed into the space afforded by our funding envelope – roughly 12000 square metres.
Leicester City’s plans for BSF phase 2 have now been presented to Government and will be discussed at Cabinet on 14th December 2009. City officials are very hopeful that the plans will be passed.
This is good news for the City of Leicester College, as we are next in line to be rebuilt. Once these plans are passed by Cabinet, the College will have just 16 weeks to reach a Stage 1 Submission – detailing the project’s scope, elevations plan, outline proposals and cost estimates.
After what seems like an age waiting for BSF, things are set to start moving very fast indeed! (fingers crossed xx)
Beaumont Leys picked up two awards, including the top prize, at the Partnership for Schools annual national award ceremony earlier this month.
The Leicester City phase 1 school was awarded “BSF School of the Year” and also the special “Grand Prix” prize for the most transformational team.
Beaumont Leys wins top BSF prize
Head Teacher Liz Logie later commented:
“When we were working with the architect, I was clear that I wanted a building that was fabulous and gorgeous, inclusive and secure, open and flexible.
I think we succeeded. Building Schools for the Future has had a dramatic impact on everyone’s sense of well being and this is clear in students’ attitudes, behaviour and effort.
There is a real sense of pride, which is great to see”
Beaumont Leys - Interior view
An honourable mention for Soar Valley College, which was nominated in the Most Inspirational Use of Outside Space category, and also to Leicester City Council – considered for the Innovation in PE and Sport prize.
Last week the BSF Champions Group took a tour of one of the newly built phase 1 BSF schools, Judgemeadow Community College. Below is a short video from the tour. ( I’ll add some more detailed text about the visit soon).
One of the advantages of The City of Leicester College being a phase 2 school is that we can learn from those schools who have gone through the process before us. There were lots of good things about Judgemeadow’s new design- the space, the calm atmosphere, the flexible working spaces – and of course lots and lots of new shiny stuff! Take a look for yourself by clicking the video below!
It was quite an uplifting experience, and I left with my head buzzing with the possibilities for our own College design.
Leicester Mercury – Education News BBC Education News – BSF
The City of Leicester College BSF Site 
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