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Reaching the build stage in any development is a massive milestone. Your planning is coming to fruition and the contractors are rolling onto your site. So what should you expect? In this week’s instalment of our school build blog, it’s time to look at building your school… A traditional school build usually takes between eight months and a year, depending on …

The success of any building project rests on the team you commission to deliver it. So, in the latest instalment of our school build blog series, we’ll be looking at setting up contracts – from identifying the right procurement route to finding a team that shares your values. Traditionally, commissioning a new school-build has typically taken a traditional …

Today our school build blog series looks at one of the most critical stages in any development: Getting planning permission. For many projects it represents a painful wait-and-see period – but when timing is critical, it is important to choose a team who will actively keep the process moving and tackle concerns as they arise. That way, as soon as you get the …

In this instalment of our school build blog series, we’re moving on to the exciting part of the process where your school starts to take shape – Step 3: Designing your school. If you’ve got the time, budget and resources, designing a school from scratch can be hugely rewarding, but it can also be incredibly stressful if you are working to tight deadlines, …

Pre-designed building specialists are working with local authorities and developers to deliver much-needed school places in a whole new way. In this blog series we would like to talk you through the process step by step, offering advice on what you need to consider at every stage. Last week we looked at Step 1: Identifying a need. This week it’s Step 2: …

School building is changing. From extra classrooms to entirely new schools, pre-designed buildings are enabling local authorities and developers to deliver the facilities communities need, quickly and with complete cost certainty. In our new blog series, we’re looking at the process step by step, showing you just how straightforward providing additional …

The time is now right for the built environment industry to develop its modular and offsite technologies and to improve its capacity. Scape Group’s latest research, the Secondary School Places Challenge, reveals that a staggering 435,646 additional pupils will be joining the UK secondary school system by 2020⁄21 – the equivalent of 14,522 extra …

The school and water have been a real uniting feature for all the neighbouring communities around Nketisoh This is the second part of our Building Schools for Africa blog. You can read the first part here, which details how Building Schools for Africa became our chosen charity and how we work with them to improve the lives of disadvantaged children and …

Harris Primary Academy Purley Way is an absolutely stunning new building and the exceptional design ensures a fantastic learning environment for children. This November we attended the official opening ceremony of the latest Sunesis school, Harris Primary Academy Purley Way. Like many local authorities across the county , Croydon Council needed new schools …

Every child deserves an education in an environment fit for their learning need, this applies as much to the children of the world as it does the UK. Summer 2015 saw the start of the journey we are now on with Building Schools for Africa. Fresh from my summer holiday having read “Starts with Why” by Simon Sinek, I got thinking about Sunesis, why we exist and …

Daventry District Council have chosen Sunesis to deliver their new Monksmoor Park Primary School. The new 1.5FE Keynes model, which is to be constructed in an area of the Crest Nicholson Monksmoor housing development, will provide up to 315 pupil places, plus an additional 30 nursery places The finished school will have 12 classrooms and one dedicated …

Planning pupil places is complex at the best of times. New housing developments, the regeneration of existing housing, changes in birth rates and the movement of families in and out of an area often combine to make the year-on-year demand for school places difficult to predict, let alone forecast over the medium or long term. We know that primary school …