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Wilkinson Eyre’s project leader, Stafford Critchlow, explains that one of the challenges that the designs have very successfully met is to create spaces that meet the lifecycle considerations of making the schools easy to clean and maintain without ‘dumbing down’ the design quality. He says: “We have struck a balance between cost and quality – choosing options that aren’t always the cheapest while making the whole solution work within the overall budget.

“For example we chose perforated metal screens to surround the stairwells because they gave the visibility that was not available with plasterboard and avoided the sense of vertigo that clear glass often creates. We were convinced that the metal was the best design solution even though it was not the cheapest.”

Where considerations of site and space allow, the buildings themselves are a development of the exemplar designs developed by architects Wilkinson Eyre as part of the Government’s Schools for the Future initiative in 2003. The exemplar scheme took the form of a ‘kit of parts’ that could be applied across a range of academic and organisational scenarios, and to a range of site contexts.

Central to the kit of parts is the distinctive two-storey triangular ‘learning cluster’ that can accommodate up to 300 students as a ‘school within a school ’.

Both Bristol Metropolitan Academy and Bridge Learning Campus, an ‘all-through’ school offering facilities for students from nursery through to post-18 vocational training, use the learning cluster. Within the cluster, the space is highly flexible and has been used to create a variety of different spaces. It also helps to break down the scale of the school, which could otherwise be alienating to newcomers.

Stafford Critchlow says: “The issues facing seven-year-olds and 17-year-olds are very different. So our design for Bridge Learning Campus allows each group to withdraw into its own spaces while providing some superb shared facilities. So, for example, the primary school students get to use the secondary school’s fantastic music school and library.

“This also avoids the typical dip in performance when 11-year-olds change from primary to secondary school.”

Wilkinson Eyre’s approach has won friends among the school teams, as Theresa Thorne, former Headteacher of Bristol Metropolitan Academy, explains: “The designs really captured the vibrancy of the school – we wanted a dedicated students’ entrance that put young people straight into their space. All students now enter though an amazing double height entrance, which really uplifts their perceptions of coming into school.”

She adds: “We’re like a mini city, with all the facilities off an amazing interior street and the language specialism reflected in the central of three clusters. This is a great opportunity for the whole community, allowing us to inspire and engage people around learning in an ICT-rich environment that will enable us to raise aspirations and standards.”

Finally, the schools are designed for use by the whole community, with the sports hall, gym and dance studios at Bristol Brunel Academy accessible outside school hours without the need to open the rest of the school.

David Carter, Executive Principal of the Cabot Learning Federation that includes Bristol Brunel Academy, says: “My criticism in the past was that schools were built with the past in mind – generally looking like refurbished 1980s schools. The great strength of Bristol Brunel Academy is that it doesn’t look like a school at all. It has improved morale and made staff proud to come to work at a challenging time.”