Three Rivers Academy in Hersham, Surrey, opened the doors of their new state-of-the-art school building to staff and students in February 2018. The high-quality, spacious accommodation, including the amazing sport, drama, dance and music facilities, was designed to inspire 21st-century learning and allow students to perform at the highest level.
The school, previously named Rydens Enterprise School & Sixth Form College, did not have a great local reputation and parents were reluctant to send their children to the school. Bullying, absenteeism and other anti-social behaviour had become part of the culture and pupil numbers and results were declining. The school was failing.
The original school buildings were an ad-hoc mix of ages and condition, with blocks randomly located across the site with poor adjacencies, meaning that pupils would spend part of the academic day walking between buildings. There was no separation between vehicles and pedestrians and one playground had even been converted into a car park.
Building Schools for Nothing (BSfN) became involved to plan and deliver a complex strategy to provide replacement school buildings without any direct funding from local or central government.
BSfN is part of the MEA Group which is a construction consultancy of Project Managers, Quantity Surveyors and Building Surveyors who have actively worked with schools and colleges delivering land disposal solutions to fund redevelopment of education facilities for over 20 years. In 2009, MEA delivered the largest, and at the time, unique in England, self-funded redevelopment of a school in Marlborough, Wiltshire. This project comprised a £23m land sale and the construction of a 12,500 m2 replacement secondary school.
Following this successful project, and in response to the withdrawal of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme, Building Schools for Nothing was established. They now work with schools, academy trusts and multi-academy trusts advising on and delivering self-funded redevelopment projects and since its formation has been involved with school redevelopment projects worth in excess of £100m.