Designing schools for a new era of safety

The Department for Education (DfE) spends nearly £2 billion annually on schools and delivers around 50 new buildings a year, with £18 billion allocated to the next construction framework. With such significant investment in the places where children spend much of their early lives, design and safety cannot be left to chance.

To provide a benchmark, the DfE has long relied on Building Bulletins. First introduced in 1949, these documents now number more than 100 and cover everything from daylight and acoustics to door handles and specialist facilities. They were created to guide safe, effective school design and remain central to how projects are delivered, yet the majority have not been updated in the last 10 years, only time will tell how these will interact with the rapidly changing needs of the industry.

The modern-day safety risks

However, the face of risk has changed. Fire safety, once the central concern, is now just one part of a much more complex picture. Structural issues, such as RAAC, have exposed the fragility of certain parts of the estate.

Perimeter security must now account for unauthorised access and escape, as well as the risk of vehicles breaching boundaries.

Safeguarding disputes now influence layouts, sometimes requiring controlled access points, quiet rooms or even airlocks to manage parental confrontations and in the background lies the once-unthinkable: terrorist incidents, now an active part of school risk planning.

Even digital systems have entered the safety debate. As schools adopt smart technology to control ventilation, access and learning environments, cybersecurity and physical security are becoming inseparable.

Yet, there is no DfE guidelines on designing for these threats. It’s often left to each individual school, local authority and design teams to determine, leading to a wide range of variations across the country. What could be considered more strenuous for the process of designing safe schools is while Building Regulations provide the statutory baseline, the DfE’s Building Bulletins remain advisory.

In practice, however, they often form the basis of funding approvals and Employers’ Requirements, effectively giving them mandatory status without the clarity of law. Only three of these documents directly align with Building Regulations:

- BB100 (fire)
- BB93 (acoustics)
- BB101 (ventilation/thermal comfort)

The rest remain guidance only, despite their critical role in shaping design.

If non-statutory guidance was treated as mandatory, where would liability truly sit? With the changes to the Building Saftey Act, by prescribing design standards, will the DfE become a duty holder as designer, or perhaps the local authority?

Greater clarity would benefit everyone and, ultimately, the children who rely on these spaces. Either the most critical aspects of the Building Bulletins must be elevated into statutory status, or the government must provide firmer guidance on where compliance is genuinely expected.

Safety questions we must address

Another area of tension lies in the dutyholder roles. The Building Safety Act has increased accountability at the design stage, yet most school projects are still delivered through Design & Build frameworks.

The Act means terms such as ‘similar approved’, ‘details by subcontractor’ or ‘superseded by X consultants design’ are no longer acceptable, a scheme should be thoroughly detailed by RIBA stage 4 and a specification signed off by the Principal Designer.

The question is, how will this translate into a design responsibility matrix, how much detail is ‘acceptable for current stage’?

Where most of the designers work ended at RIBA stage 4 and the contractor took on any changes during construction, will the ‘design risk responsibility’ now require a more involved RIBA stage 5 for design teams?

Reconciling these two approaches will not be straightforward. Early, detailed safety input from designers should become the norm, supported by a more collaborative environment, yet providing clearer contractual language that defines shared liability across Client/Designer/Contractor.

There is also the challenge of designing for risks that evolve faster than regulation. We cannot afford to wait for statutory updates to catch up with threats like cyber security or complex safeguarding scenarios.

Safety guidance must become more adaptive, refreshed regularly with input from both government and industry. Cybersecurity frameworks are reviewed annually; why shouldn’t the same urgency apply to the standards governing where children spend their formative years?

If they are setting the standards, they need to be involved in the design team of every project to ensure this is carried through to construction. How this filters down through the school construction frameworks remains to be seen.

Defining a "safe" school

Designing schools for a new era of safety means accepting that the target will always move. It means asking the hard questions before crisis forces the answers.

So, what is a “safe school” today? It anticipates evolving risks, integrates security and safeguarding into its very fabric, and provides parents with the confidence that their children are protected in every sense.

That is the standard we must hold ourselves to and as Principal Designers, the standard we must hold the whole team to, the DfE, the Design team, the Contractor, the management team and the maintenance team, because the trust placed in these buildings every morning demands nothing less.

At Pick Everard, our building and construction safety team works closely with clients across the education sector to deliver safe and compliant learning environments. Contact us today to see how we can support with your next project.