St Bedes Interchurch School

R G Carter were originally appointed to increase St Bede’s School capacity from a 5FE school with a 780 pupil capacity, by 1FE to between 850-945 pupils.

Subsequent to appointment, however, the project scope was changed due to a fire in the existing school. Our Design Manager led the project team in devising alternative proposals to meet the school’s requirement whilst also addressing the issues caused by the fire. We worked closely with the design team and the Client’s project team in order to develop this revised scope and produce a flexible proposal which would ensure minimum disruption to the school. This resulted in a phased plan to minimise the areas of the school being worked on at the same time, which included:

Phase 1 – the demolition and reinstatement of the fire damaged areas of the technology block, as well as an extension to the block to provide three new classrooms. Additionally, we reconfigured the original car park to hand this much needed space back to the school at the earliest opportunity.

Phase 2 – provided an extension to the dining hall, new kitchen, new changing facilities, admin areas and new science laboratories. The delivery of new kitchen facilities is a key aspect of this phase, therefore to maintain the Client’s day to day activities and minimise disruption, we provided temporary kitchen facilities and a dining area to accommodate the canteen staff and food preparation.

Logistical Management Strategy
Logistically, the site was complex, with only one shared access route into a car park to the front elevation which will remain in operation for staff and visitors during the construction works. Plans were taken into account vehicle movements for entering / exiting the site and unloading / distributing materials around the site which has two separate construction areas in the first phase and various areas internally/ externally during the second phase.

Our contractor’s compound was situated to the right of the building with car parking kept completely separate to the Building user’s. The compound was suitably segregated by fencing, with the emergency escapes routes maintained along the school’s existing exit points.

An aspect we have had to consider was the effect of the vehicle movements on the surrounding neighbourhood.

Furthermore, as the site was in a well populated residential area, it was imperative to liaise not only with the school, but also with the neighbours during the construction phase. In terms of “added value”, our experience of using a Client Liaison to act as point of contact with local residents and stakeholders proved to be extremely beneficial in previous educational schemes.

A key issue for the school was maintaining access to outdoor play spaces during break times. From the onset, our team instigated discussions with the school in order to sequence the works suitably to minimise disruption to the school while it remained fully operational. As the pupils were housed in temporary classrooms at the back of the school, we prioritised ensured services were back on and refurbishment works were complete early in the existing part of the school that was damaged during the fire to ensure beneficial access at an early stage.