The new school project is continuing to develop at a pace. Over the last month our design team Carillion have been working in consultation with the staff to develop the floor plans for each of the teaching clusters. The outline plan should be fixed by mid March with the aim of submitting a planning application by the end of March. We are keen that everyone should have the opportunity to view the proposals before the planning application is submitted. To give everyone this opportunity, we are planning a design exhibition for the second half of March. The date will be confirmed soon and will be published under the Calendar section of the website. A 'Meet the Team' event was held by Carillion on 6th February which was very successful. It was a good opportunity for the whole of the design team to meet everyone involved in the project - students, staff, parents, neighbours and the wider community. We thank all of those who attended, it was good to meet so many of you and to hear your comments about our project. We look forward to meeting you again at the next available opportunity.
UPDATE, NOVEMBER 2007
The evaluation of the two bids has now been completed and we can confirm that Carillion has been selected as the preferred bidder. This selection was supported by the school and community feedback where Carillion’s average score was 15.7 compared to Willmott Dixon’s 13.5.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to view the presentations and complete the feedback forms, your comments on the designs have all been recorded and will be reviewed with Carillion and taken into account during the next stage of design development.
The evaluation process did highlight a number of issues with the design that still need to be addressed and for this reason we have taken the decision to extend the final design development period. We are meeting with Carillion today (28th November) to review the issues we need to address, to review the whole programme and to agree an action plan. We expect that the planning application will not now be submitted until late February and that consultative workshops on the final design development will not commence until early January. Carillion are also planning, in the near future, a community information event for you all. We will let you know the date for this as soon as possible.
OCTOBER 2007
Last month’s newsletter brought you up to date with progress for the selection of the Design and Build Team for the new school project. You will remember that there are two bidders – Carillion and Willmott Dixon. The tenders for the design and build were submitted on 26th October. Three teams will evaluate the two bids over the next two weeks. The three teams will evaluate and score the bids against set questions that will cover design, sustainability, technical assessment and the delivery of the project. It is also extremely important to the project that students, staff, parents and the community have the opportunity to look at the design and give their own feedback. To ensure that everyone has an opportunity to view the two designs, two displays have been set up. These displays will run from Tuesday 30th October until Friday 16th November. Students and staff will be able to view the displays in the school library. The school library will be open to students during the school day, at break times and after school. The two designs will also be displayed at the Folk Hall for parents and the local community to view. There will be feedback forms available at both locations. We would urge as many people as possible to take the time to view the designs and fill in the forms to let us know what you think of them both. The teams that will be scoring the two designs will use your views from the feedback forms.
The scoring of the two bids will be completed by 23rd November and the successful Design and Build team will be announced on 26th November. The November newsletter will include the details of the successful team.
SEPTEMBER 2007
The new school project has been progressing at pace since the previous update in July 2007. You may recall that we are in the middle of a competition to select the team that will design and build our new school. There are now just two companies left in the last stage of the competition. These are Carillion and Wilmott Dixon. Both competing teams must submit their proposals to us by 26th October and. These proposals will be evaluated for design, quality and price by a team made up of school and City of York Council representatives, technical, educational and ICT advisers. It is important to us that everyone involved has the opportunity to view the two designs and your feedback is most important in helping the teams to evaluate. To ensure that everyone has the opportunity to see the two designs,
there will be a design exhibition day, open to everyone, during November. The date for this day will be announced shortly.
In the meantime, students and staff are heavily involved in the design development. Both Carillion and Wilmott Dixon are holding regular workshop sessions involving students and staff. These workshops ensure that students and staff make a real contribution to the design. The Joseph Rowntree School students have offered some great ideas and really constructive criticism. They are proving to be a challenging and inspiring client for the design teams.
If you are not already aware, you may like to know that Wilmott Dixon have created a web-based consultation tool specifically aimed at students but open to anyone with an opinion. The site is www.schoolcoolwall.co.uk please visit it and let us know what you think about school design.
JULY 2007
It has been nearly one year now since the DfES announced that City of York Council was to be a One School Pathfinder for the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme and, although it may not appear so, a lot has happened over the last twelve months.
Immediately following the announcement the Planning and Resources Department, within Learning, Culture and Children’s Services, carried out an options appraisal of all the secondary schools in York. Each of the schools was assessed against a range of criteria that took into account, amongst other things, the condition and suitability of the current school buildings, the educational standards and the amount of recent investment. The result of this exercise was that the Joseph Rowntree School was selected for the One School Pathfinder (OSP) project. This selection was recommended in a report to the Council Executive who duly approved the project in July 2006.
The school set up a School Development Group as soon as they were notified that they were to be the site of the OSP project. This group began meeting every fortnight from the end of September 2006. It represents the school in the development of the new school design and most importantly, are responsible for developing the vision for the new school.
The Building Schools for the Future programme is all about transforming education and the School Development Group is tasked with developing a vision for the future education of students at Joseph Rowntree School. It is this vision that will identify the key design principles of the new school and ensure that the new building will support the development of learning and teaching styles in years to come.