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Supporting you with your education estate
We’re a rapidly growing estates consultancy business, with a team of experts across strategic property advice, business case development and delivery management. We provide strategic estates and service solutions that deliver quantifiable, long-term added value to a range of bodies including schools, trusts, the NHS, local authorities, and emergency services.
We specialise in education and health, and work as an extension to your in-house team, leaving you free to concentrate on the day job. We have extensive experience working alongside local authorities, schools and MATs alike, to work out how to bring your estates aspirations to life and best meet the needs of both your SEND and mainstream cohorts.
We can help you manage your competing priorities and put in place plans which will ensure your building is fit for the future.
extensive experience working with Local Authorities
Services we offer include:
- Capacity Assessments and Utilisation Studies
- BB103 and BB104 analysis
- Pupil Place Planning and Sufficiency Strategies
- Estate Strategies and Project Management
- Sustainability Advice
- Feasibility Studies
- Bid and Funding Application Support
Practical steps to support you
Struggling with an aging estate?
Nikola Idle, our Director of Consultancy, reflects on the issues schools and academies are facing every day due to their aging estates, and gives you a series of practical steps you can take to avoid your estate continuing to deteriorate.
Helping create a SEND sufficiency strategy
For some local authorities, managing the need for SEND places is more difficult than others. One local authority had a rising trend for pupils with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) needing special school places, with this trend growing at more than the national average.
They asked us to work with their in-house SEND and schools team, reviewing data on historic and current trends to create a forecast of the number of special school places that are likely to be required across the area. We then reviewed the existing estate to establish how and where additional capacity could be created, and identify the scale of the future shortfall in places. Our strategy and forecasting dovetailed with the local authority’s inclusion strategy, which aimed to increase the ability of mainstream schools to meet the needs of pupils with SEND.
Making the most of your budget
When trying to prioritise shrinking budgets, you need to make sure you’re getting value from investments, whilst ensuring facilities are fit for purpose and sustainable. We can help you meet these objectives.
We have worked with local authorities, individual schools and multi-academy trusts covering primary, secondary and post-16 age ranges, both mainstream and SEND cohorts, so we understand the sector and the differing needs of each cohort.
Is your building holding your school back?
You need to start thinking about what the future holds, and how your buildings may need to change or develop to align to your organisation’s plans and prepare for the future.
With changing ways of operating, advancements in technology and the journey to net zero, there’s lots to think about.
Creating more SEND places
We’re supporting a local authority (LA) with strategic and project management to create new SEND places. We’re undertaking feasibility study reviews of education and non-education properties to ascertain the potential capacity and viability of new SEND provision in these buildings.
For schemes that passed this initial viability test, we worked with the LA and school to create a scoping and briefing document for the contractor appointed to deliver the scheme, and will continue to project manage the scheme through the handover.
Securing funding for SEND free schools
Free schools can be a good solution to provide more SEND provision, but often they need central government capital to open. We worked with a Local Authority to produce a free school submission application, securing DfE capital to establish a new SEND free school in their area.
Our work included proving the forecast deficit, by type of need in the LA area and defining the requirements for the new school. We supported identification of a preferred site and demonstrated its viability for development.
Speak to our education experts
Want a chat about how we can support your ambitions for students in your region?
