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Drawing on case studies from higher education and specialist research facilities, speakers will examine the practical realities of working within constrained and occupied environments, balancing decarbonisation ambitions with cost, compliance and technical challenges. The session will highlight approaches to feasibility testing, infrastructure planning, embodied carbon reduction and phased delivery, demonstrating how targeted interventions can extend asset life, improve performance and futureproof ageing estates while minimising disruption and environmental impact.Chairperson
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Emotionally‑Based School Avoidance (EBSA) is a rapidly growing challenge, prompting the development of the facilities at Prince William School. This session shares the project’s journey—from the initial need and design principles to the operational realities of placing specialist provision within a mainstream site. The speakers will present insights from students, staff, and the trust, highlighting the benefits of supported transitions, community integration, and repurposing an existing building. The session offers practical lessons for design teams and clients seeking to create effective, inclusive environments that improve engagement and outcomes for EBSA learners.Chairperson
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Healthy learning environments directly influence educational outcomes. As part of the Great British Energy Solar Partnership programme, 32 schools are participating in what's believed to be the largest DfE indoor air quality monitoring trial across the UK education estate. Continuous monitoring of CO₂, temperature, humidity and occupancy is revealing how classrooms truly perform. With over 90 percent of monitored rooms regularly exceeding 1500ppm CO₂, the implications are significant. This session explores what this means for pupil performance, operational efficiency and national reform, showing how structured environmental data strengthens governance, informs investment and supports a more performance-led education estate.
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This session explores how colleges can combine digital innovation with sustainable refurbishment to extend the life and performance of existing estate assets. Using a live case study from Barnsley College, speakers will examine the process of identifying opportunities for the Institute of Technology within a historic 1930s building located in a conservation area.
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Nurseries are at the heart of a vibrant community and vital for children and their families. This session will explore how we are achieving safe, sustainable and inclusive environments for our youngest learners.Speakers
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Using live school case studies including Woodham Academy and Dunfermline Learning Campus, speakers will demonstrate how digital twin platforms can integrate operational, asset and performance data to provide facilities and estates teams with real-time insight into building performance.
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Alternative Provision is not known for attractive buildings, but now serves a record number of pupils and is earmarked for significant investment. Led by an inspirational headteacher and including the pupil voice, this presentation explains the goals of Alternative Provision, explains how the brief for this new site evolved and how the design team created a fresh approach to building layout and detailing. For those writing a brief for, or designing, an Alternative Provision environment, this talk provides background theory, lessons learnt, and practical and original tips for an aspirational approach that goes above and beyond the baseline.ChairpersonSpeakers
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This session will feature insights into how CF25 technical objectives can be translated into deliverable design solutions and lessons learned from real CF21 projects that directly inform CF25 decision-making.
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Following planning approval in January 2026, Princes Primary SEN School represents Liverpool’s response to rising SEND demand and forthcoming national reform.This session explores how four specialist schools will be consolidated into a single community-based setting, balancing funding constraints, statutory duties and therapeutic integration.Speakers will share lessons from aligning capital delivery with needs data, embedding early intervention and outdoor access in design, and planning for flexibility amid the Government’s recent overhaul of SEND provision and funding.
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This session explores how schools and education estates can move from climate adaptation strategies to practical, on-the-ground implementation, ensuring learning environments remain safe, resilient and operational in the face of increasing climate risks such as overheating, flooding and water scarcity.Chairperson
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How much can we learn by auditing each other’s buildings—and inviting critique of our own? Focusing on inclusive design for disability and neurodiversity, we will review a number of our counterpart's projects including education and healthcare. Using the principles of inclusive design, we will test how our buildings perform in practice and in detail. Through peer visits, user workshops and post-occupancy evaluation, we will reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how we can continue learning to design more inclusively.
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This session explores how artificial intelligence, digital technologies and data-driven approaches are transforming both the management and delivery of education estates. Attendees will gain practical insights into how intelligent technologies can support more efficient operations, better-performing buildings and greater confidence in estate investment and delivery.
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This session explores how highly specialist educational and residential environments can be designed to support safety, wellbeing and positive outcomes for vulnerable young people, while balancing complex operational, safeguarding and therapeutic requirements.
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Energy Pods: A Modular Approach to Decarbonising School Heating Systems
Cindy Kings, Associate Project Manager, Mott Macdonald | Ian Keeling, MEP Specialist, CundallThis session explores the development of Energy Pods as an offsite-manufactured solution to replace traditional school plant rooms and end-of-life boilers.
Drawing on a programme of design, modelling and technical research, the session shares insights into system sizing, integration with existing infrastructure, and delivering modular solutions across diverse school estates.
Attendees will gain an understanding of how factory-built plant systems can support faster, safer and more efficient upgrades, while enabling a scalable pathway to decarbonisation, with pilot installations now under consideration.
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This session explores the long-term impact of university buildings through the lens of post-occupancy evaluation and heritage retrofit. Using Southampton Solent University's The Spark and Sheffield's Arts Tower as case studies, speakers will demonstrate how both new-build and refurbishment projects can enhance the student experience, improve sustainability, and create resilient, future-ready learning environments.Chairperson
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This session will provide an overview of the department's Research and Development (R&D) programme, setting out the context of our estate and the key issues and challenges that are driving our work. Attendees will gain insight into the questions we are seeking to answer and the evidence-based approach being taken to support future decision-making.
The session will showcase achievements to date, highlighting how research findings have influenced school building specifications and delivered tangible benefits for schools. It will also examine the impact of the programme more broadly, sharing key lessons learned and emerging insights.
Finally, the session will look ahead to the next phase of the R&D programme, outlining future priorities, opportunities for innovation, and the steps being taken to improve and adapt the education estate for the future.
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Details to followSpeakers
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As more education estates approach the end of their Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts, organisations are increasingly focused on ensuring successful handback outcomes and protecting long-term value. This session brings together legal, operational and real-world perspectives on managing PFI expiry, drawing on both strategic contract management expertise and practical experience.
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The Department for Education's SRP programme is transforming the design and delivery of school buildings across England. Through a suite of nationally developed design standards, technical guidance and pattern book solutions, S25 provides a consistent, evidence-based approach to creating high-quality, sustainable and inclusive learning environments. Aligned with the Education Estates Strategy's vision for a decade of national renewal, the programme helps ensure that school estates are adaptable, resilient and cost-effective, while supporting educational outcomes and community engagement. By standardising excellence, S25 enables faster delivery of better schools for future generations.
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This session explores how existing and historic buildings can be reimagined to create future-ready learning environments that support academic excellence and wider civic renewal, as well as respecting heritage. Through case studies including the University of Greenwich’s refurbishment of Grade I listed spaces within King William Court and the transformation of a vacant former department store in Margate into a Creative and Digital Technology Centre, speakers will demonstrate how challenging or constrained buildings can become catalysts for innovation.Speakers
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This session will feature presentations from the Department for Education Sustainability Award finalists:
- Prospect House Specialist Support Primary School, Manchester
- Queensmead Primary Academy, Leicester
- Offley Primary Academy, Sandbach
- The Levett School, Doncaster
- Trinity School, Belvedere, Bexley
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This session will explore how school landscapes can be designed to better support inclusion, wellbeing and equitable
educational experiences, including how outdoor spaces are used by girls. Speakers will examine how traditional approaches to school grounds can unintentionally exclude or marginalise some students and explore how outdoor spaces can support a wider range of activities, social interactions and learning experiences that ultimately benefit everyone who uses them.Chairperson -
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This session explores how the Department for Education’s Education Estates Strategy is reshaping expectations for estate management across schools and trusts, moving organisations from a culture of “should do” to one of clear operational and governance accountability. Speakers will examine how new requirements translate into practical responsibilities for Trust Boards, executive leaders and estates professionals.
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Speakers in this session will examine the practical implications of emerging policy, capital investment and estate planning, alongside the growing role of trauma-informed and neurodiversity-aware design in promoting wellbeing, safety and belonging. Through policy insight and design-led case studies, the session will consider how inclusion bases, sensory-informed spaces and wider estate improvements can be integrated within mainstream settings to support equitable outcomes for all learners.
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This session explores how ambitious sustainability goals can reshape the way education buildings are designed, delivered and experienced, challenging the reliance on complex mechanical systems and demonstrating the potential of low-energy, Passivhaus-informed approaches at scale. Drawing on research-led thinking and large-scale delivery experience, including the NowtHaus research study and the University of Manchester’s landmark Fallowfield Passivhaus student residential development, speakers will examine how intelligent architectural design, thermal comfort modelling and performance-led decision-making can reduce operational energy demand while improving occupant wellbeing and building resilience.Chairperson
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Before children can learn, they need to feel safe. This session explores how school landscapes can actively support emotional regulation, wellbeing and readiness to engage. Moving beyond the idea of playgrounds as leftover space, it reframes external environments as essential infrastructure for calm, belonging and focus. Drawing on trauma-informed design principles and the idea of school as a place that should feel like home, the talk demonstrates how planting, enclosure, materiality and choice create environments that reduce stress and support every pupil, because regulation is the foundation that makes learning possible.Chairperson
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This session explores how education estates can deliver safer, lower-carbon and more environmentally responsible buildings by rethinking both the materials used and the way their wider impacts are evaluated. Through research-led guidance on timber-framed schools and case studies of high-performance construction projects, speakers will examine how sustainability, fire safety, embodied carbon and material sourcing can be addressed together rather than in isolation.Speakers
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This session will feature presentations from the Education Estates® 2025 Project of the Year Winners
- Inclusive Design - Lisburne SEND School - AtkinsRéalis
- State School - Prestley Wood Academy - AtkinsRéalis
- Independent School - Lower School Library, Dulwich College - alma-nac
- Colleges - Industry Hub, Burnley College - Cubed Thinking
- International - River Grove Elementary School - Arcadis
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As the sector moves towards greater standardisation and data-driven decision-making, speakers will examine how organisations can build stronger estate intelligence, improve governance and align local priorities with national expectations. Through live case studies from both school trusts and higher education institutions, the session will demonstrate how complex estate data can be made more accessible, enabling stakeholders to make more informed decisions about investment, sustainability, space utilisation and long-term strategic planning.ChairpersonSpeakers
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Bringing together perspectives from schools, FE colleges and design professionals, speakers will examine how policy, capital investment and estate strategy are shaping more adaptable, neurodiversity-affirming learning environments. Through case studies including specialist SEND provision, inclusive FE campuses and sensory-informed design approaches, the session will highlight how buildings, landscapes and operational planning can work together to improve wellbeing, independence and learner outcomes.ChairpersonSpeakers
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This session explores how school and college estate renewal projects can successfully deliver sustainable, future-ready learning environments while operating within the constraints of live educational settings, ageing buildings and complex campus conditions. Through the case studies St Mary Magdalene & St Stephen’s CE Primary School and Greenhead College, speakers will demonstrate how some of the sector’s most pressing estate challenges, from RAAC remediation to the replacement of Laingspan structures, can become opportunities for long-term transformation. Drawing on lessons from both projects, the session will provide a concise overview of how stakeholders have navigated the challenges of rebuilding, retrofit and inter-campus remodelling.
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