The School Rebuilding Programme started in 2020 with a target of 500 schools over ten years. By June 2025, 518 schools had been approved, and the government's infrastructure strategy committed to selecting a further 250 within two years. For a school that gets a place, it is usually the biggest change to its buildings in decades.
Who does what
On most projects the Department for Education leads delivery. It appoints the contractor through its own frameworks, sets the design standards and holds the budget. That is a real advantage: the school does not have to run a procurement or carry the construction risk.
It does not mean the school or trust can sit back. The DfE builds to its specification, and it is the school that has to make sure the new building works for its pupils, staff and timetable. The school also has to keep teaching safely on a live site, sometimes for two years or more.
Where schools need to be ready
- The brief. Class sizes, specialist rooms, SEND provision, community use and future growth all need to be stated clearly and early. Changes late in design are hard to get.
- Information. Surveys, asbestos records, drainage and utilities drawings and site boundaries are requested quickly. Gaps cause delay.
- Design reviews. Someone who understands both education and buildings needs to read the drawings and ask the right questions, stage by stage.
- Living with the works. Decant, temporary classrooms, access routes, fire strategy and safeguarding on a shared site need planning well before the contractor arrives.
- Handover. Training, operation and maintenance manuals, warranties, snagging, and furniture and equipment that the programme may not fund.
How we help
We act as the school or trust's representative alongside the DfE team: reviewing designs against how the school actually works, keeping the information flowing, planning the decant and making sure the building that is handed over can be run and maintained. We have done this from the client side on a £28 million new secondary school in central London. See our School Rebuilding Programme service for more.