Camden Schools
The background
Providing spacious, high-quality and purposefully designed schools can have an impact on the overall educational experience of students and teachers. To raise educational attainment and address the shortage of student places, the London Borough of Camden Council entered the national ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme.
Their ambition was to deliver inclusive, sustainable and modern secondary schools to boost academic performance and close the attainment gap between different groups of young people. Particularly those with learning difficulties and disabilities.
In 2010, Invesis were awarded the PFI contract to design, build, finance, maintain and operate a secondary school and a special educational need school. By partnering with Invesis, the London Borough of Camden Council were able to successfully deliver schools with state-of-the-art facilities, that meet the needs of present and future generations.
Client
The London Borough of Camden Council
Capital Value
€85m
Sponsor/Investor
Invesis
Consortium
Camden BSF SPV Ltd
Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC)
BAM Construction
Operations and Maintenance (O&M)
BAM FM
Business value.
At the bidding stage, Invesis and our partners embarked on an extensive consultation exercise with the Council and relevant stakeholders to ensure that the ethos of the reference designs could be maintained and aligned with the affordability requirements, and thereafter developed to ensure that the design could adapt to accommodate future learning and teaching styles.
During the construction phase, minimising disruption to students learning was key as construction took place within a ‘live’ environment. This was particularly important for the well-being of special educational need (SEN) students as the noise of a construction site can be unsettling. Invesis alongside our partners, worked with the client to assess student’s needs, curriculum and timescales, to establish an optimum programme for construction and school handovers.
The concession has been operational for 9 years and Invesis continues to work closely with the Authority, in conjunction with BAM FM, to deliver a range of managed services to ensure the schools are maintained to an optimum condition of appearance and performance.
Key features.
By using the PFI model and partnering with Invesis, the project…
- received an “Excellent” grading by the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE) during the bid review
- has had a positive impact on the learning experience of students, for example, one of the schools – Swiss Cottage School Development and Research Centre – have been rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted for the last seven years in a row (latest report March 2023)
