The Project: Barnsley BSF

The Brief

With BSF funding secured, plans got underway  to transform learning in Barnsley by replacing 13 secondary schools with 9 new build ALCs (Advanced Learning Centres) to create new and inspiring places to learn. The first phase of the development built 5 schools, each with an emphasis on building new environments for students, teachers and the community to enjoy learning, and a brief to fit the schools out with state of the art facilities, new technologies and flexible multi-functional learning spaces.

The End Result

The first 5 schools created in this scheme were The Dearne ALC, Darton ALC, Kirk Balk ALC, Penistone ALC and Carlton ALC.  Each school now caters for 11 to 19 year olds with a variety of facilities that benefit the students’ learning with enhanced ICT provisions, modern learning resources, social spaces and vastly improved performance, sports and leisure facilities.  

Each school’s design has an element of their individuality, for instance Kirk Balk has a modern exterior to reflect its technology specialism and the contemporary ICT facilities inside, whereas Penistone, its strong community focus has been a key element in the design of the new building, centring on the school’s business and enterprise specialism. Each school has a modern interior with bright open spaces, bold decor and colours, creating a welcoming environment that the students, the community and visitors will enjoy and respect. 

Fitting the schools out with the facilities they needed was co-ordinated through The David Langdon Specification Consulting team providing contractors and specifications for Laing O’Rourke as part of their involvement in the Barnsley development.  Stage Systems was involved in the development in partnership with ESA MacIntosh, supplying all 5 schools with products for their multi-functional performance spaces. Stage Systems offered individual consultation to the schools to achieve exactly what they wanted from their new performance facilities and worked in conjunction with the contractors to install the products. Stage Systems offered staff training on how to use the system as well as after sales service and maintenance, providing extended support and customer satisfaction.

Auto-Q retractable seating was installed at 4 of the sites, to give the main hall, auditorium or lecture theatre a unit to comfortably seat students in a tiered format for lectures, lessons and performances.  Stage Systems gave each school a different solution, as each chose different seat designs and colour finishes suiting their own school, but were constant in their choice of auto-Q retractable seating for its, strength, ease of use and compact design when retracted.  The emphasis on quality and flexible space features throughout the auto-Q concept and design, offering a full seating system when extended, or a large flexible space when retracted. The versatility of the space in the school makes it even more appealing for external hiring purposes, which each of the schools can now offer, bringing the school and the community closer together.

A further benefit of using Stage Systems as a supplier for this project is that not only do Stage Systems consult, site survey, provide technical drawings, supply and install auto-Q seating, but are also staging suppliers.  The staging designs are for flexible use and are a modular format, which was ideal for the new schools and their flexible spaces.  4 of the 5 schools have performance areas where Q-build staging is fully utilised in single and multi-height configurations, and compactly stored. 

What They Said

All 5 schools have now opened and the students, teachers and the community are making full use of their new facilities.  Each site offers an extensive range of facilities to offer a full and varied curriculum and extracurricular activities for the students as well as adult learning and facilities for the community to enjoy, a combination to make an inspirational place for everyone to learn. The choice of exceptional resources at each site has helped the development project meet its requirements providing multi-functional spaces and exciting learning environments for the whole community.

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