Brussel Sprouts Forever

A few people, my long-suffering husband included, have hinted that I use the Festive Break to completely get away from BSF. I couldn't resist bringing the decant and phasing plans home in case I need something to fill an idle moment. I've also purchased a book called "The Honeywood File" as suggested by a comment contributing parent on this page, which I plan to read. I think I'll conceal it in a copy of Heat, so no-one knows what I'm really doing. I suspect hauling the family off to look at fine examples of core-ten will be a step too far, though, although if we do happen to go to Marylebone High Street, I don't see any harm in us accidentally wandering past the school at the top of the road that uses it. I'll withhold the post I was going to write on the PfS commissioned independent report on BSF until the New Year, and hope I don't accidentally do it when filled with a bit too much festive cheer.

One of my colleagues suggested in my Christmas Card that, for the next few days only, BSF should stand for Brussel Sprouts Forever. Alternatives I've thought of include:

Being Santa's Friend
Big Snow Flurries
Bloomin' Seasonal Festivities
Being Seen by Family
Blasted Stocking Fillers

I'm sure I could come up with a few more, but I think that's quite sad enough already. I'm off to peel potatoes.

BSF - Designed by Vogons

I've been threatening for quite a while to write a post on the nightmare that is the BSF process. Well, it's Sunday evening and I'm in the mood. It's going to be a bit long and ranty.

I think the short way of expressing the problems is to say that I've been at my current school for over two years. The BSF process had started a few months before I joined and we still haven't quite agreed to a set of plans for the school or, for that matter, that we're committed to joining the process. If we'd just been given £21million and told to improve the school with it:

a) We'd probably be almost finished.
b) We would have actually had £21million spent on the school (instead of the £18million we end up with).

Instead we've had loads of visions, lots of consultation (though probably not of the right sort) and heaps of meetings. See my post dated 3 December for an idea of the quantity of meetings. It is the most crazy waste of public money that I've ever come across, and very few people involved in the process disagree. The preferred bidders we're working with have always seemed to be very open about the costs, and have told us that all the bid costs will be recouped from the Hackney BSF "pot". I know approximately what the costs are, but wonder whether putting the figure in the public domain would break commercial confidentiality, so I won't. Suffice to say the figure is big! That's just the bidder costs. In my more impish moments I consider putting in a Freedom of Information request about the costs to the Council Tax payers of Hackney.

Here is a list of things I don't like about the process:

• It's enormously time consuming, particularly in terms of meetings.
• It's enormously bureaucratic and expensive.
• It patronises schools by suggesting they couldn't do these things alone.
• If you go into BSF having your ICT services taken over by the private sector is compulsory. In theory handing over Facilities Management is optional, but in practice it's very difficult to retain them.
• There is more than one layer of profit involved in all of these services, hence value for money is questionable at best.
• Although the process is supposed to be "transformational", it's not clear what this term is supposed to mean.
• Some parts of the process are just ridiculous. The Design Quality Indicators spring to mind as a low point (I may write something on this another time).
• It's constrained by something called Building Bulletin 1998 (BB98). This is a formula that tells us how much space we should have. It doesn't allow for the types of extended services we would love to have on site - bases for Housing & Social Services, a creche etc.
• It goes against the increase in school autonomy that LMS brought.
• There is potential for budgetary problems in around seven years time when the ICT contract ends.
• We all know about the horrors that privatisation of services can bring.
• The bids were a million words each. The contracts are probably similar in size. Many trees have died for this process.
• It engulfs my working life to the extent where it's occasionally hard to keep on top of other aspects of my job. Sometimes I dream about BSF.

And in the interest of balance, here's what I like about the BSF:

• There will be much needed improvements to the premises. No leaky roofs etc.
• Many of the architectural problems with the building will be ironed out.
• It's been a tremendous learning curve. I know loads more about architecture than I did two years ago.
• I'm looking forward to having a Help Desk for Facilities Management and ICT. I think there will be improvement in services.
• I really like the proposals for the new block. I think it will look great.
• I've met loads of really good people over the past couple of years. Some are real characters, some have taught me a lot and one of them took us on a lovely narrow boat trip on the canals of London (don't worry - no Labour Party-esque dodginess involved).
• And, most importantly I believe it's aims are good. Ultimately it should provide a better learning environment for our students and allow us to focus on delivering the best education possible rather than dealing with dodgy plumbing. In short it's a good idea, extremely poorly executed.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 14/12/07 Thirty-three (plus a Governing Body Meeting that I'm not counting)

Something from the Chair

It's time for a new voice. Here's something Henry, our Chair of Governors, copied me into recently.

"My last email set me wondering on how the headship recruitment would have gone if it was run like BSF.

Well, we would have a rigid process imposed on us, had to hold around 50 meetings on it, would have had the job description changed without informing us - just before it was sent out, The vote on who to choose would have happened while we were out of the room for a break and key
elements of our requirements would not have been communicated at all

And of course we couldn't have advertised for just a headteacher. To ensure economies of scale we would have had to advertise for a package including a headteacher, ICT support staff, cleaners and caretakers - and we would simply have had to accept the headteacher that came with the rest of the package. and have had to sign a 10 year contract before we could replace them.

what fun that would have been...."

I think that gives a good flavour of our frustrations with the process.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 11/12/07 Thirty (and one of those lasted five hours)

Are we nearly there yet?

Next week Governors meet and the aim was that they would be making the final decision about whether or not to enter BSF. As I've inferred before, I would be amazed if Governors feel they can make this decision

I've just had a conversation with our friendly local Education Advisor, who asked me where we are with the list of Governors' issues, so I thought it might be helpful to update the post from 6 November. In true Top of the Pops style, the positions last month are shown in brackets with coloured writing.

RESOLVED -
SEN spaces
not losing a gym
TV studio near media/english classrooms
configuration of staffroom/reprographics room
use of "L" block/boilerhouse, school to be involved in recruiting new staff
number/size of classrooms (pending staff consultation)
circulation (pending staff consultation)
Central ICT hosting (↑ we still don't like it, but it's much cheaper)
Specialist ICT equipment (↑ don't know what we'll get, but we know how to get it)
ICT "interim services" offer (↑)
Demonstration the BSF ICT Strand will offer a clear improvement on current provision (↑ Nick feels the current offer will result in improvement, although we are resigned to subsidising capital outlay)
Clarity on how accidental damage and vandalism will be dealt with (↑)
Clarity on the Facilities Management Variant Bid (↑ Getting clarity was like pulling teeth, because no-one really wanted us to take it, but we got it in the end. We then decided actually, everyone was right, we didn't really want it, but that wasn't the point.)
FM Interim Services Offer (↑)


LOOKING MUCH BETTER -
Stakeholder involvement (but needs to continue)
Clarity on ICT funding levels at end of initial contract period
Office/workroom spaces
Covering of courtyard (↑ we know we're not going to have it covered. That might not have been what we wanted, but at least we know the score)
Changing rooms (↑ Location resolved - size/layout still to be worked on)
Build timescale (↑ This is clearer, though sadly not what we announced at Thursday's parent meeting. We have yet to see a fully worked up Decant and Phasing proposal, though)
Building fully accessibly (↑ it still isn't and may never be, but we've now agreed an approach)
Energy saving/environmental impact (↑ I have now glanced at what's known as a BREEAM assessment, and it comes in as "Very good", but have not yet seen or discussed the full detail)
Level of ICT Technical Support (↑ This has improved to the extent where we can recommend it, but we're cynical that it will work long term)
Access to ICT network for Media Web & Music Technicians (↑ I don't feel this has been fully discussed, but we feel there won't be any obstructions)
Inspirational challenging design for the school reflective of school specialism (↑ we have a design we really like, but it may not be affordable)

WORK STILL NEEDED OR MATTERS STILL UNRESOLVED

Value for money/market testing (there are two teams of Quantity Surveyors working frantically on this, though and we have on occasion been reminded that it's not the school's money! All involved acknowledge that this process will never offer value for money)
Quality of materials (still not yet discussed)
Liaison between Design and Build & Facilities Management (I've been told it's happened, but have not seen any evidence of it)
Discussion needed on how Local Education Partnership (LEP) processes will work once BSF is in operation (will anyone ever talk to us about this).

So, as you can see there has been lots of upward movement, but some fairly major issues still not fully resolved. Although our Governing Body are very much their own people, I would imagine that they would be prepared to be flexible if there were a couple of minor matters outstanding, but that there will be too much that is still "unknown" to allow them to agree formally to enter BSF on Wednesday. In fact, matters listed above aside, we're not in a position to sign of the Legal Agreement, as there is still a great deal of documentation still missing.

When I started this Blog I suggested that it might be short lived if Governors didn't sign up at the end of November. It now appears I will be continuing at least until the New Year. I wonder where the meeting count will be by then? I can hardly bear the tension.

Notes on Meetings

As this blog is now a month old I thought it would be interesting to look more closely at the meeting count to date.

Why the count?

BSF is enormously bureaucratic. At one stage earlier this year we did a rough meeting count and it was well into the hundreds over a period of two years. I thought a meeting count would be a simple way of illustrating how intensive the process is. Admittedly things are particularly busy at the moment, but I think high levels of meetings will continue for at least another year. It would be impossible to keep track of the amount of time consumed by BSF outside of meetings, but it's a lot. Probably at least the amount of time spent in meetings.

What counts as a meeting?

For the purposes of this blog it's any scheduled meeting where the main focus is some aspect of BSF. I haven't counted meetings where it was one agenda item amongst many, and I haven't counted inpromptu discussions, of which there are many. I've only counted meetings involving me, which are most of the meetings related to Stoke Newington School, although there have been a couple of ICT meetings that have just been attended by the Network Manager. I haven't counted meetings that have been cancelled, because that would be cheating. I also didn't count a BSF social event or the session with prospective Headteachers.

What types of meeting are there?

Lots! And to illustrate this, here are some statistics since the start of this blog. Sorry if this is a bit sad. I promise, I do have a life.

Total number of hours spent in meetings: 51
Longest meeting: 4 hours
Shortest meeting: 1 hour
Number of working days since 2/11: 22
Total number of BSF meeting free working days: 4
Most meetings in one day: 4 on 27th November
Number of meetings off site: 7

Meeting Topics: Design & Build 10
Facilities Management 2
ICT 4
Staffing 2
Legal 2
General/consultation 5

And in Conclusion....

.... BSF involves a whole heap of meetings! Of course we knew that anyway. Meetings involving me are a small percentage of total meetings for Hackney BSF, and this really isn't intended to be a "poor me" aspect of the blog. All three Phase 1 schools will be having the same numbers of meetings, and there are masses that go on in the background involving a cast of thousands. I'm afraid this is a process that lends itself to enormous numbers of meetings. Now the cost of these meetings? Well, that's a subject for another post (but one four hour meeting was attended by 19 people).

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 3/12/07 - Twenty-Five

Quick Progress Report

I'm off for the next few days, but just wanted to do a quick update.

There will be a further BSF parent consultation event next Thursday (6th December) at 6pm at the school. There will be a brief run through the plans for anyone who wasn't at the previous meeting, but the main focus will be responding to the comments arising from the Parent/Community meeting held on 30 October.

The Governors' Resourcing and Community Committee met on Tuesday. This meeting had originally been scheduled to allow the committee to discuss all the BSF proposals in depth so they could make recommendations to full Governing Body meeting the following day. As there are a few pretty major areas of the design and build still unresolved the committee only looked at the Facilities Management and ICT aspects of the bid in depth. The feeling was that these were much better and we are heading towards something we can accept. Will we have reached something we can accept on Design and Build by December 12th? Personally I'd be amazed, but we have seen BSF rabbits plucked from hats before now, so let's see.

There's lots going on next week, so watch that meeting count rise.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 29/11/07 - Twenty-Four

Jumping on Lilos

I've likened BSF to jumping on a lilo. You iron out one area and another pops up. We had a really positive (small) Design and Build meeting on Friday, but I'm now worried about the Facilities Management (FM) strand. This strand had been pretty steady for ages, but I was sent the report for Governors through the other day and discovered a few areas where there were either major omissions or where the contents were concerning. The scheduled FM meeting on Friday was cancelled, so my concerns were dispatched via e-mail. Here's a list of things that still need sorting. Hold on tight - it's pretty scary:

• Landscaping
• Decant and Phasing
• TUPE
• Legal agreements
• Elevations
• Room Data Sheets
• The "Semi-Frozen Scheme" versus the "Governors Scheme"
• FM - the Variant Bid
• FM - phasing of interim service
• Student consultation

Sorted:

• The ICT bid (as far as possible - although Governors have yet to agreed the offer)

There are other areas that aren't yet resolved, such as parental consultation, but where we at least know where we're heading.

We're supposed to have all the above resolved in time for the Governors' Meeting on December 12th. Will we manage it? I can hardly bear the tension! It seems there's loads of lilo jumping to do.

On a completely separate note I was doing my regular bout of volunteering at a local community bookshop on Saturday, and was introduced to a customer who just happens to be a Learning Trust lawyer dealing with BSF. We spent an entertaining couple of minutes chatting about it, but there is no escape. BSF is everywhere.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 23/11/07 - Seventeen

Wrangling over Walls

Today was another busy BSF Day. This morning the Chair (Henry) and I met with some of the parents who had expressed most concerns about the project. I don't think we could say that all their fears were allayed, but they were happier with the decant plans. Over and over again we keep coming back to value for money and some day soon I will steel myself and write my general BSF process rant. The other big things were changing rooms and lockers. There are a lot of people who really want improvements in the plans for changing rooms. Of all the "extras" I think that's the one that seems the highest priority. There is also a bit of a debate going on about lockers. Again, probably a subject for another post. After the meeting I wandered the school with the person who's arranging the decant and we tried to think a bit laterally about some of the issues.

I then met with the Head and hatched plans (but for the purposes of clarity this was a random discussion and won't be included in my meeting count).

We then had our last set of 1:1 meetings with Heads of Department, which were generally positive. My big fear has always been that there will be classrooms missing, and I don't that's going to happen. Having had these discussions we were able finally to look at work and meeting space. Things are obviously getting a bit tight financially as we ended up wrangling a bit over walls. It was pretty good natured, but it went something like this:

Me: Couldn't we put a wall up here (in nebuland for those who know the plans) and create more office spaces.

Lovely Architect: Well, it's a matter of cost.

Me: But look, we've taken these walls out here. Can't they just be moved over to nebuland instead.

Lovely Architect: I don't think it's affordable.

Me: Well, how about we do this. This saves us a door as well as some walls.

Lovely Architect: (makes general negative noises) etc. etc. You get the drift.

It's the dawning of a new, tougher era.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 22/11/07 - Sixteen

A little something some students made earlier

Apparently written while practicing on the stairs and with no prompting by staff whatsoever. I look forward to drama lobbying by staging productions in the car park.

A Bad Couple of Days

Well a couple of weeks back we had the swings, so this week we got the roundabouts.

On Thursday we met with the independent solicitors who have been engaged to act on the part of the schools. It's really comforting to have them there, but the amount of ground that needs to be covered before financial close just feels overwhelming. We were looking at the Governors' Agreement, which in itself is quite a small document. The problem is that it refers to four other documents, and the clear advice from the solicitors is that someone from the school needs to be familiar with the contents of these documents. Unlike the Governors' Agreement these documents will not be small, and the person who will need to be familiar with these documents is me. The solicitors will also be reading them and providing us with a commentary, so that's useful, but there's no getting around the fact that they'll need to be read.

Friday was a very full day of BSF meetings. In the morning we carried on with the 1:1 meetings with Heads of Department. The idea is that we look at the spaces allocated and the ICT/Equipment requirements for each area of the school. This was the second set of meetings (we'll have at least one more set). The first set went pretty smoothly but now we're starting to hit a couple of problems. I'm pretty sure that no department will be worse off than they are at the moment. They all should have the same number of spaces, and they'll be newly kitted out and completely refurbished. The thing is that firstly some people had hoped for much more and that secondly there will be a huge amount of disruption while we get there. I'm going to have to draft someone in to make decision on whose need is the greatest in terms of curriculum needs.

In the afternoon a cast of thousands (including the Chair and incoming Head) turned up for the weekly Design and Build meeting. By the end of the meeting I was feeling pretty glum. The good news was that:

• planning's been submitted.
• decant and phasing plans are better than they were.
• there's a plan called the "Governors' Scheme" that covers almost everything we'd want.

The bad news was that:

• the Corten elevations are going to cost around £236,000 more than there is in the budget. The thought of revisiting the elevations is thoroughly depressing to me and, no doubt, to the architects and anyway these are the elevations that have been submitted for planning. No-one's quite sure what will happen. We'll find out next week.
• I'm still not happy with the landscaping. It's an area that has been much neglected. We had a great meeting with the student design group and, to me, their input was almost completely ignored.
• it seems some of the Department Heads may have a struggle on their hands to get their rooms kitted out in the way they've requested. Again, I think I need a curriculum "referee", and quickly.
• the "Governors Scheme", which offers 100% accessibility and changing rooms where we want them amongst other desirable things, will cost over £250k more than there is in the budget. Again, who knows what the answer will be to this.
• the decant and phasing plans that appear at first glance to be workable will result in an increase in temporary accommodation which again will cost rather more than budgeted for. Money that you by now will have figured out isn't there.
• there's a huge amount of work to do on the rooms data sheets (which itemise what will be in every single room of the building and need to be thoroughly checked).
• there's a huge amount of work to do generally! Financial close by December 19th seems impossible. My life seems swamped by BSF, and I'm sure it would be impossible to underestimate how much work everyone else involved is putting in.

After over 8 solid hours in BSF meetings I was feeling very huffy by the end of Friday. I blame a lot of this on the BSF process itself, of which more later. That's quite enough grumbling for now. Let's hope next week's better.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 16/11/07 - Thirteen

A quick update

Just a quick update as I want to keep in the habit of posting every 2/3 days.

The date for Governor sign-up has been moved as we know that there are certain aspects of the plans that won't be "approvable" by November 28th. The proposals may be better, but we won't have had the opportunity to consult fully.

We're therefore aiming for Governors to meet on December 12th, with Parent/Community consultation possibly on the 6th December.

I'm currently awash with paper. Documents are coming in thick and fast. Tonight we're meeting the independent solicitors that have been engaged to act on behalf of the Governing Body, so anything legal generates paper, although their comments are very user friendly. I'm also preparing paperwork to send out to staff who are likely to be transferred (meeting this time next week). Large papers on ICT, FM and Design & Build have also pinged into my inbox. So enough of this blogging, let paper shuffling commence!

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 15/11/07 - Eleven and a celebration.

Consultation

We've pretty much been consulting on and off for over two years, but it's really key now. One of the problems with the process is that during the competition phase, where we had two bidders, we couldn't consult very much at all because of "commercial confidence" i.e. not being able to risk one bidder finding out what the other was doing. This has meant that, although over a year ago we met with parents, staff, students to ask what they would like, it's only now that we can show the final proposals to them and get their feedback. We are, as usual, working on a very tight timetable and governors are absolutely clear, and quite rightly, that they won't approve entry into BSF until they feel we have had full consultation with stakeholder groups.

So far we have had:

• A meeting with student council representatives with a particular focus on landscaping.
• A parent & community consultation evening.
• A staff drop-in session.
• The first of many individual meetings with Heads of Department.
• A support staff meeting with a BSF focus.
• Plans displayed in the foyer and me pouncing on any students who make the mistake of showing too much interest. My lovely laminated explanatory labels didn't even last a day, so verbal explanations it has to be!

Frankly the list looks long, but we'll have to do more. Staff consultation's going well, with most staff happy (or not too unhappy) with what they're getting. Problems have arisen, but they're resolvable so far. There will, as ever, have to be compromises though.

We need more student consultation. We need to know that what the students suggested was listened to and acted upon, and this hasn't been demonstrated yet. I don't want to do lipservice constulation, particularly with the students. Their ideas were good and reasonable and they're a great group.

We definitely need another parent and community evening, and we've got one pencilled in for November 22nd. I guess during our first consultation evening we had around 30 people attending which, given that we did an invite for each student to take home, followed it up by text and leafleted local homes (which gave me renewed admiration for those who do that for a living), I thought was low. The major cause of controversy here were the levels of disruption that would be caused during building works. I guess for many parents their children will be hit by over two years of disruption, then leave and won't be around to enjoy the benefits. Even taking that into account, though, the parents were shown plans that even the school thinks are too disruptive and unworkable, and we need to go back to them with new plans. You've also got to feel for the residents of Clissold Rd who've had years of the inconvenience caused by construction works on the Leisure Centre. This finally comes to a halt, they get a few months of peace and in rumble the BSF trucks. We absolutely need to do our best to minimise disruption for them, because generally they're very supportive.

Again, writing this makes me realise how much ground needs to be covered in such a short space of time. Will we do it? Watch this space.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 9/11/07 - EIGHT (plus two hours on BSF with the prospective Headteachers, but I won't count that)

ICT Services

For those of you who aren't familiar with the BSF process let me explain that as part of the scheme the school has to take the ICT services. Facilities Management services are theoretically optional, but ICT services aren't.

This element of the project more than any other has caused great consternation across the school community. We're pretty proud of our ICT. It's not perfect, but we have a great team in place (one of whom, Nick, our Network Manager, is likely to start posting on this Blog pretty soon) and I think things move on in leaps and bounds here. The idea of losing control, staff and, in particular, creative potential is one of the greatest stumbling blocks to eventual participation of the school in the whole BSF project.

I don't think we'll ever be persuaded that the ICT side of BSF is a good thing for us. If it was that great, the Government wouldn't need to make it compulsory because schools would all be champing at the bit to buy in. There will be a large amount of capital investment and there will be savings to schools for a few years, but in our case much of the investment will go on replacing cabling that's been ripped out by the building works. Anyway, rant over. All involved have heard the SNS rant many times now.

Basically Governors will need to decide whether these issues, together with the others that arise from the project, have the potential to make such a major negative impact on the school that they outweight the positives.

Earlier this week there were two meetings to look at movement on the ICT offer. I don't think I can go into too much detail here, because we haven't yet had final confirmation from RM (the potential ICT provider), but it looks as if they are approaching a solution that will reduce costs for central services, and resolve worries that we had about staffing levels here. We also had discussion about what might happen to the ICT team when they're transferred to RM, which again I can't go into too much detail about, but allayed some of my fears. We were given a draft of the document which will go to the governing body, which covers many areas that have been concerning in just enough depth, but seems pretty open and honest. We also flagged up a few areas, such as training and kit, which will need to be gone into in depth after "financial close" on December 19th.

Anyway, just as a teaser, here are some of the topics I'll be covering in the next few posts:

• TUPE Transfer
• Consultation
• Facilities Management
• Kitting out Rooms
• Lawyers
• The Sign-up process
• The BSF process (likely to be another rant)

Bet that's whetted your appetites.

Meeting Count 2/11/07 - 8/11/07 - SEVEN

A Good Couple of Days

We seem to have made a lot of progress over the past couple of days. Monday morning Henry (the Chair) and I met with Mouchelparkman Babcock (MPB) to go over the list of Governors' Requirements and to check what progress has been made since September. Of course, not everything's resolved, but a lot has moved on. Reprinting the whole list in a blog is probably a bit impractical (the full list can be found on the SNS website), but to summarise, subject to further staff consultation, the feeling is:

RESOLVED -

• SEN spaces
• not losing a gym
• TV studio near media/english classrooms
• configuration of staffroom/reprographics room
• use of "L" block/boilerhouse, school to be involved in recruiting new staff
• number/size of classrooms (pending staff consultation)
• circulation (pending staff consultation)

LOOKING MUCH BETTER -

• inspirational challenging design for the school reflective of school specialism
• circulation, number/size of classrooms
• stakeholder involvement (but needs to continue)
• Central ICT hosting
• specialist ICT equipment
• clarity on ICT funding levels at end of initial contract period
• ICT "interim services" offer
• office/workroom spaces

WORK STILL NEEDED -

• Value for money/market testing
• location of changing rooms (although there is a potential solution for this)
• covering of courtyard
• build timescale
• quality of materials (not yet discussed)
• building fully accessible (although has gone from 5% to 85% accessible and full curriculum can be accessed)
• energy saving/environmental impact,
• liaison between Design and Build & Facilities Management
• level of technical support (again, I hear there are proposals afoot)
• access to ICT network for media, music & web technicians
• demonstration the BSF ICT strand will offer a clear improvement in current provision
• clarity on how accidental damage and vandalism will be dealt with
• clarity on the Facilities Management "Variant Bid"
• FM "interim services" offer
• discussion needed on how Local Education Partnership (LEP) processes will work once BSF is in operation.

Sorry if some of this is in unintelligable "BSF Speak". It's a bit unavoidable in this post. Ask me through the comments box if you need any clarification.

It may look as if the list of unresolved areas is long, but we also came up with a plan to deal with most of these by the 28th November. At least MPB are clear what we're looking for, and I know they're working furiously to present acceptable proposals.

We have also had some really positive movement on ICT and I had a good meeting with support staff yesterday, but I think this post is quite long enough, so more on that in the next couple of days.

And finally, we hope to have a PTA led parent consultation evening on 22nd November. We need to check all concerned can make it, so the date is only provisional, but pencil it in and watch the website.

Meeting Count - 2/11/07 - 6/11/07 - FIVE

Of Elevations, Decant and Phasing

There are lots of areas of the BSF plans for the school that haven't yet been settled, and some are bigger/more important than others. Yesterday I went to a meeting with the architects and builders together with the Chair of Governors. In particular there were two important areas we focussed on.

The appearance of the building (Elevations).

Anyone at the Community Consultation Evening will have heard the architects say how may revisions there had been to the elevations. Love it or loath it, it's a very strong building and deciding what to put next to it has caused huge difficulties. I must have seen around 15 versions of the plans. These versions have been discarded because either the school didn't like them, the planners didn't like them or they were unaffordable. I'd imagine there are a good few we never saw because the architects themselves discarded them. What was eventually submitted in the final bid was what is termed a "pastiche" of the exisiting building. When the Governing Body saw the proposal they felt it was uninspiring and so it was back to the drawing board again. Just before half term we were presented with a few options and there was unanimous agreement amongst those in the room that the architects should work on elevations using "corten". This is a type of steel that oxidises over the years without flaking, so the building will gradually change in appearance. The idea is that the reception and windows will have colour that contrasts strongly with this, and there will be lots of internal colour as well. Personally I think the plans are now coming along well and looking exciting. Let's hope everyone else agrees.

Decant & Phasing Plans

This is the stickiest area of work at the moment. Of course it's impossible to have an £18 million building project without some disruption to school life, but it's really important that this is kept to a manageable level and that good, creative teaching can continue. In addition every penny that is spent on temporary accommodation is a penny not spent on works to the school, which no-one wants. The current plans for decant of classrooms and phasing of works are not acceptable to the school and quite rightly caused consternation with parents. Yesterday we agreed some guidelines (e.g. making the most of the time when Year 11 and 13 have left the school, not taking out half of the school for an entire year, office staff being able to "camp out") and agreed a timeline for MPB to come up with some solutions that we think can be put back to parents again prior to the Governors' Meeting on November 28.

The next few weeks are going to be really intense for all concerned. One thing all involved are unanimously agreed on is the "clunkiness" of the BSF process, which is certainly the most bureaucratic thing I've ever been involved in in 18 years of local government employment. To illustrate this I'm going to show a "meeting count" starting from now. This will only be a count of the meetings I attend from now on. I go to most meetings relevant to the school, but there are a few regarding ICT that I don't attend. Life's too short to count the ones I've been to so far, so here goes:

BSF Meeting Count as at 2/11/07: ONE

Why a Blog?

After last night's parent and community consultation evening a few of us were discussing updating the website and other ways of best communicating what's going on with BSF, and we came up with the idea of a blog (amongst other things).

We thought some of the joys of using a blog were:

• readers will be able to go back through the archives to follow the story.
  
• it's relatively simple for me to update regularly without having to turn to our friendly Web Designer for help every time it needs changing.
  
• it's available for anyone to look at at any time. Not depending on "pupil post" is always a good thing.
• it will allow people to comment and for me to answer queries for all to see.
• it should be a more informal and personal way of giving up to date information.
  

Of course the down side is that I'll have to remember to do it frequently enough to keep people interested, but I promise I'll try.

The idea is that we'll keep the blog running throughout the BSF process. If Governors decide not to proceed with the project at the end of November, then it will be a very short blog. If they do sign up, this blog will run for around three years. My blog will be very much about the bricks, mortar (actually more likely to be Corten - more of which later) and services side of BSF. We plan to set up a partner blog about the creative process, which will be written by Helen Wood, our Specialism Co-ordinator.

I hope to remain as balanced and neutral as possible, because I think that's my job and it's a job I enjoy and want to keep. I will be honest, though, and there will be things that I cannot discuss at times due to confidentiality or other sensitivities, so please bear with me.

Keep an eye on the website for additional updates and parents, keep checking your children's bags for letters and copies of Spotlight.