Work planned around terms, not around us.

An education project is almost always a construction site inside an operating school. Students are moving between buildings, staff are teaching next to the work, and parents are watching. Term dates are set years ahead and a school cannot simply not open.

So the programme is written from the calendar backwards. The work that cannot happen beside children. Demolition, structure, services shutdowns, crane lifts. Goes into the breaks. What happens in term time is quiet, hoarded, and separated from every route a student takes.

• Screening before site accessEvery worker on a school site holds the working with children clearance their state requires, checked before induction rather than after. No exceptions for a one-day trade.
• Physical separationHoarding, a separate site compound and a separate gate. Construction traffic never uses a route a student uses, and the boundary is designed so that a child cannot casually be on the wrong side of it.
• Induction that covers behaviour, not just hazardsSite personnel are briefed on conduct around students and staff as part of induction. It is treated as a compliance item because it is one.
• Communication with the school communityWorks notices to staff and families before disruptive activity, not after the complaint. A school executive who can answer a parent’s question is an ally.
• Noise, dust and outlookLearning spaces adjoining the work need acoustic treatment and dust control at a standard higher than a normal site, because concentration is the product.
• Emergency procedures that work for bothEvacuation routes and assembly points are reconciled between the school’s procedures and the site’s, and re-checked each time the hoarding line moves.

New teaching buildings

Classroom blocks, science and technology facilities, libraries and resource centres, with the acoustic and daylight requirements that learning spaces carry.

Refurbishment and modernisation

Older buildings brought up to current accessibility, fire and services standards, usually inside a break window and usually with more discovered than documented.

Specialist facilities

Trade training, laboratories, performing arts and sports facilities, each with technical requirements that a general classroom does not have.

Early learning

Regulated space and outdoor area requirements, sightlines, and finishes and fixtures chosen for a very specific set of users.

Grounds, access and covered areas

Covered walkways, play areas, drop-off zones and accessible paths of travel, often the works most visible to the school community.