St. Bernadette School

St Bernadette School is forward-thinking with traditional roots and a positive attitude to working. It aims to create opportunities for the moral, spiritual, intellectual, physical and social growth of the school community.

Vision

The original design brief from the school was to develop the Faith and Learning Community within the school. The development of a ‘language of learning’ through pupils from a diverse mix of backgrounds was a key driving factor for the design.

Facts & figures

The project, costing £1,504.00 per m², consists of a mixture of refurbishment of existing blocks and construction of new areas, with external works of £238.00 per m² and services works of £213 per m².

The total area of the site is 3.94 hectares: the gross floor area of the new development will be 7,256m² with 4,427m2 of teaching space, 1,209m² of circulation areas and 298m² provided for storage.

The site

The current main school building is a collection of single and two-storey structures positioned around a central core and housing reception, assembly, teaching and amenity/welfare facilities.

Design

The main block will undergo extensive remodelling and refurbishment to enable faculty grouping and improved circulation and provide a focus for learning and socializing at the heart of the school.

A two-storey extension will provide a new learning resource centre on the ground floor at the heart of the school and classroom accommodation on the first floor. A further double-height extension will provide new dining facilities and improve vertical circulation routes at the heart of the school.

The St Benedict’s building is a two-storey building housing teaching facilities and associated amenities. The ground floor will be extensively remodelled to create new science classrooms linking into the new build extension. The first floor will be retained and redecorated.

A two-storey extension to the south of the existing gym will provide new accommodation for the creative arts department.

The new development will provide a more coherent building footprint that will minimise the impact on the external play areas and create a suite of buildings that offers the transformational education environment to support education excellence.

Community use

Approximately 80% of the school grounds and 25% of the school buildings will be available for community use, including the Sports Hall, Gym and Main Hall facilities.

Low-impact design features

The following are utilised as far as is practicable within the new build and refurbished areas:

• Optimised building form and orientation to maximise solar access and daylight, with effective solar protection to avoid solar overheating and glare.
• High-efficient compact florescent luminaires and automatic lighting controls to switch off lights where not needed.
• A high-performance thermal envelope to guarantee high levels of air tightness.
• Passive/ natural ventilation where possible, exposed mass to provide passive cooling and avoid the need for air-conditioning and controlled mechanical ventilation (with recovery).
• Variable speed drives in air handling units to improve part load performance and high efficiency fans.
• Heat recovery in the primary ventilation air plant and centralised heating systems, with variable speed pumps to improve part load performance.
• Separate heating zones to allow heating to be individually controlled and/or switched off when required.

Predicted energy consumption

The predicted annual electricity consumption per m² of floor area is 58kWh and predicted fossil fuel consumption per m² of floor is 8kWh. Predicted water use is 0.38m3 per m² of floor area (based on 0.017m3 per pupil per day).

Environmental, social and economic impacts

It is vital to have sound controls in place to manage common issues from construction, such as dust, noise, run-off, light pollution, hydrocarbon contamination and increased transport. Skanska construction sites operate to the highest standards of environmental good practice, but each site also has strong links with its ‘host’ school and through them, the wider community, in order to ensure that any issues or concerns arising from site operations can be resolved quickly and effectively.

Significant opportunities exist in construction to improve waste management and ’resource efficiency’. Deliveries of materials are organised to arrive ‘just in time’ wherever possible to minimise waste produced, and all waste materials are segregated and recycled wherever possible. As an example, the piling mats have been constructed from excavated material derived from site. Closed unit paint washout stations are used on the Bristol sites to prevent paint escaping into surface water run-off.

Skanska have a commitment to strengthening the local labour pool in areas where construction projects are ongoing, both in terms of numbers employed and providing training. The company have stringent targets for employing local labour on their schools projects – this figure is currently 70%. In addition, Skanska actively encourage their supply chain to offer apprenticeship schemes to young people, and regularly attend school careers fairs to promote the construction industry as a career choice.

Skanska have a longstanding partnership with Remploy who are the UK’s leading employer of disabled people. Remploy factories supply all the Bristol projects with fixed furniture and equipment, which means that the schools are contributing to social and economic sustainability for the region.

Visit website St Bernadette Catholic Secondary School