Boclair Academy, Bearsden

From the offset we have been involved in the design and construction journey of our new school and to see our ideas and suggestions come to fruition has been fantastic. Our young people are absolutely thrilled with their new school and I know they are going to thrive in this stunning building which is truly fit-for-purpose.

Douglas Brown | Headteacher

Completed

100%

Waste diverted from landfill

£13.5 m

Social & local economic value delivered

£12.4 m

Local economic value generated

New state-of-the-art educational building, built to create an inspirational and stimulating learning environment.

The new Boclair Academy was envisaged as being an environment designed to support collaborative approaches to teaching, learning, and working.

The design approach was key in supporting young learners to become successful, confident, responsible learners and people, capable of making an effective contribution to learning inside and outside their school environment.

East Dunbartonshire Council were keen to ensure that teachers were enabled and encouraged to embrace the spatial design of the building, using the spaces in the building to deliver their teaching in alternative and more informal ways throughout the school.

Boclair Academy is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school located in the Greater Glasgow suburb of Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire.

A new two-storey building was created delivering a state-of-the-art learning environment for 1050 pupils. This building was created in the grounds of the existing school, with the previous building being demolished once construction had finished.

To foster a cross-curricular approach, an organisational model was agreed in which key subject areas who typically worked together would be located within easy reach of each other. This approach will create new links and collaborative opportunities amongst the departments and pupils. The Council were keen that pupils could see the pupils in other years, learning and working together throughout the school.

This design approach will be instrumental in encouraging and supporting students during their learning journey, but also provide an inspirational and flexible learning environment for teachers.

Construction of Boclair Academy started during the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021. Whilst adhering to our construction programme, we safeguarded of our workforce and the community through comprehensive measures implemented on-site, including daily testing and social distancing measures to limit transmission.

In addition to COVID-19 we faced other challenges including Brexit, labour and material shortages and price fluctuations.

The new school was constructed on land adjacent to the existing building, with one shared access/egress for site and school traffic. A detailed Traffic Management Plan was implemented with segregated pedestrian and traffic entrances; gate-person managing all traffic; deliveries scheduled to avoid school drop-off and pick-up times; and designated off-loading and material storage area.

Phase 1 of the project, which was the completion and handover of the new school building, was completed on time and within budget. Phases 2 and 3 will follow on and comprise the demolition of the previous school and establishment of the new school pitches.

The planned works to the existing 3G pitch were originally scheduled for phase 2 but instead were re-sequenced to ensure the pitch was completed for the pupils returning to the new school.

From the start of the new school term, pupils will benefit from a new modern educational facility which features a large entrance atrium, flexible learning zones, performance spaces and dining areas.

Sustainability

McLaughlin and Harvey operate an integrated management system across all sites which includes ISO14001 (Environmental), ISO50001 (Energy) and ISO14064 (Carbon Reduce) focusing on creating a more environmentally friendly and sustainable built environment on our projects.

The building has been built to the highest quality standards with high quality sustainable materials being used as far as possible in line with the life cycle approach. Pre-fabrication was widely encouraged and utilised to ensure that waste and offcuts were kept to a minimum.

Boclair Academy is a project which has had sustainability at the heart of all operations throughout the project duration. Throughout construction, the project performed well against its targets. We set a target of diverting 95% of construction waste from landfill and the project is currently surpassing this target, sitting at 99.94%. This is achieved through good waste segregation on site, signage, and education of employees.

There were opportunities to ensure valuable materials on-site were preserved, such as excavated soils, the turf of the existing football pitches and timber pallets. Soil was recovered as far as possible (98.92% recovery rate), turf used for alternative pitches elsewhere and timber utilised through take back schemes for wooden pallets to ensure beneficial reuse.

Targets were set at the start of the project for the site's consumption, including: electricity to date (target = 363,467 kWh, achieved = 225,865.5 kWh), fuel to date (target = 132,907 litres; achieved = 69,655 litres), and water to date (target = 1,857m3, achieved = 1,288.6m3). This further outlines the drive from the project to ensure that consumption of resources is kept to a minimum and that efficient systems and usage are in place at all times.

Following the completion of Phase 1 of the construction of the new school, the job now moves on to Phase 2 which is the demolition of the existing school. This has been planned strategically to ensure that the building is stripped out, and that recyclable materials are extracted. Demolition will then be carried out with demolition waste being crushed on-site and graded to 6F2 standard, which allows this material to be reused on-site. This will ensure that waste meets end of waste criteria and can be used as a useable product on-site, replacing the need for alternative material to be used.