How SEND School construction for all can meet growing demands 

There can be few greater challenges for local authorities than ensuring that SEND provision is up to scratch, and with the challenges posed by increasingly high demand, constrained budgets, and an ageing building stock, it is no surprise that some have been struggling to keep up with what is required.

All of this has unfortunately led to a shortfall of suitable places and is affecting children across the country. Stories of children travelling up to two hours each way to a suitable school have become commonplace, putting huge amounts of pressure on both the children, their parents and the teachers, in addition to financial strain on the local authority to cover the travel costs.

This can be incredibly damaging, not only in terms of the toll taken on the child by additional travel, but also the knock-on effect of the child not being as involved in their community and having local friendship groups as they would have if they attended a nearby school. In addition, parents miss out on vital support from other parents in similar situations due to proximity.

Alongside this, the increasing demand for suitable school spaces for SEND children is putting extra pressure on an already creaking system. Improvements in the early diagnosis of additional needs mean that more children require specialist spaces within a local school.

These challenges have been recognised in government, with local authorities challenged by the government’s Right support, Right place, Right time review to consider their provision and ensure that they have enough suitable school places across their region.

Recognising the issue

One way of doing this is an ‘all-needs, all-through’ approach, which I have seen in practice through our work with Lincolnshire County Council, for whom we’re delivering, or have delivered, five projects as part of an £86m investment in its SEND provision.

The benefits of this are numerous. It minimises transitions so that the pupil becomes more engaged with their community, parents don’t feel the pressure of sending their child to another area for their education, and local authorities are able to reduce transportation costs at a time when councils across the country are feeling the squeeze.

Pupils are also able to mix with other children with different needs, which provides a wider perspective to learning and forming additional friendship groups. This provides a more rounded approach to a child’s educational journey, much more akin to a traditional educational route.

By taking this approach, local authorities can rise to the challenges that they currently face with SEND provision, but the key to doing this successfully is by getting the right team together as early as possible and working collaboratively towards a common goal.

Early does it

In terms of early engagement, speaking with the key figures at the schools is absolutely vital. When we work on SEND projects, our first port of call is always the head teacher and the business manager of each school, supported by their FM team, to establish what their greatest needs are in order to best cater for their pupils.

Once the crucial requirements have been established, we look to wider engagement – whether that be through study tours of similar-sized facilities, or interviews and discussions with schools that have already been through the process. What this provides is actionable insight, as it gives both the customer and ourselves the opportunity to speak to people and identify what learnings there are to be gained. These lessons are applied on the project and the 360-degree improvement process continues throughout the programme.

While most design and build processes will have some element of this early engagement, what is essential, particularly with SEND schools, is that this continues throughout the project. The lead teachers from the school need to be fully integrated in the meetings when we discuss design so that they can act as a conduit for input from the wider school community, but it is equally as important to engage with the pupils themselves as well.

This also applies to our supply chain partners and consultants. The design team need to have a view of how the children are taught and the obstacles they face day to day in order to gain a true appreciation of who they are designing for and how they use the space.

Tackling the common SEND challenges

While every school has its own challenges, there is an element of commonality across SEND schools, which means we can apply lessons from previous projects to future ones. With the huge amount of equipment required to serve the varied needs of the pupils, storage is a major issue for SEND settings and is something we try and address as early in the process as possible to ensure we are delivering a result that is fit for purpose.

Transportation is another recurring issue for SEND projects. Because of the need for one-to-one support, the staff-to-pupil ratio is significantly higher than in mainstream schools, so this has a significant impact on parking provision. Similarly, many pupils will be dropped off and picked up from the school with specially adapted vehicles, so the approach to traffic flow needs to be more rigorous than it may be at a school where the majority of pupils arrive by public transport.

Access by the wider support teams is vital. Consideration for the access of physiotherapists, speech and language experts, medical professionals, nursing teams, wider educational teams and the like must be taken into account, including the potential for out-of-hours use of the specialist spaces to allow a deeper offering of service to the local community.

For all the technical and practical necessities, one key message that has shone through across many of our SEND projects is the need to move away from the more clinical feel that these schools have had in the past. Some of the pupils may have spent significant amounts of their lives in hospitals, and the last thing they want is to be reminded of that when they are at school.

It boils down to investing time at the start of the process into speaking to the end users – in this case, children’s services, the teachers, support teams and the pupils. The more you do this, the more likely you are to get it right first time.

The elegant solution

When you speak to parents, teachers and local authorities, there is no question that the ‘all-needs, all-through’ approach to SEND education is the one that delivers the best results for all involved.

Doing this well, however, can prove a challenge if you don’t approach the project with an open mind for collaboration with all elements of the supply chain.

What has proven key from our experience is that the earlier this engagement and collaboration happens, the better the chance of delivering a successful scheme that gives the desired outcomes for the customer.

The most successful SEND development projects we have been involved in have been ones where we’ve worked together with the customer and the architect from RIBA Stage 1. By being involved from the start of the journey, contractors can contribute their knowledge to the design process, meaning that budgets can be much better controlled than when they become involved at RIBA Stage 3 and have to value engineer their way back to making the project cost-efficient.

A question of cost

While this approach is the ideal solution, the fact of the matter is that local authorities are feeling the pinch as much as anyone, and this financial question is going to remain one that is tricky to address.

The harsh reality is that the economic equation of cost per pupil is significantly higher for SEND schools and that isn’t likely to change any time soon. Delivering true value for money by addressing the needs within a region and ensuring that the end users are getting the best possible facility for the local authority’s outlay is key.

The government has recognised these changing times and recently launched its ‘right support, right place, right time’ open consultation on SEND schools, which is a hugely positive step in the right direction.

Whatever the approach, the passion for getting it right first time is critical. When we see some of the difficulties that some of the children in SEND schools live with, and the challenges that are posed to the staff in delivering the best education possible, it provides a real sense of purpose to our approach to the projects.

By working with local authorities to create an educational setting that meets the needs of as many of those children with special educational needs and disabilities as possible, the construction industry can be truly proud of making a tangible difference to the lives of children, parents, and teachers alike.

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