IN Brief:
- BAM has completed the rebuild of St Leonard’s Catholic School in Durham after RAAC disruption.
- More than 1,300 students were taught in temporary facilities while the permanent school was delivered.
- The project is a national milestone for education estate recovery following the RAAC crisis.
BAM has completed the rebuild of St Leonard’s Catholic School in Durham, making it the first school to be fully rebuilt following the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete crisis.
Pupils have now returned to the permanent school building after a period of major disruption that began in summer 2023, when more than 80% of the school was identified as being affected by RAAC.
The discovery forced significant operational changes, with the Department for Education, Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust, and BAM working to move pupils into temporary accommodation before the permanent rebuild progressed.
More than 1,300 students aged 11 to 18 continued their education in temporary facilities while construction work took place. The rebuilt school now includes science laboratories, technology rooms, a climbing wall, a dance studio, a gym, a chapel, outdoor play areas, picnic spaces, gardens, shelters, sports facilities, and terraced external areas.
BAM also worked with the school during the build to provide work experience, site tours, and workshops, turning the construction programme into a learning opportunity for pupils alongside the practical task of replacing failed estate infrastructure.
The completion marks a shift from emergency response into permanent recovery. The RAAC crisis exposed a wider challenge across public buildings: many estate risks are hidden until intrusive surveys, structural checks, or material failures force urgent action. Schools, hospitals, courts, and other public buildings have all faced pressure from ageing fabric, budget constraints, and the need to keep services operating while major works are planned.
Education projects carry a demanding operational brief because disruption affects pupils, staff, parents, transport, safeguarding, catering, exams, and wider community use. Temporary accommodation can keep teaching going, but it adds cost, logistical complexity, and pressure on school leaders. A permanent rebuild must therefore be delivered as an operational recovery programme as well as a construction project.
The St Leonard’s project sits within an education-estate market expected to support construction activity over the next few years. Forecasts have pointed to education, public-sector non-housing, and RAAC remediation as areas likely to contribute to a stronger rebound from 2027. The expected recovery is likely to favour contractors with experience in live public estates, constrained sites, and compliance-heavy delivery.
School construction is also becoming more technically varied. Modern education buildings need specialist teaching spaces, digital infrastructure, flexible halls, sports and wellbeing facilities, safeguarding controls, energy performance, outdoor learning areas, and durable internal finishes capable of handling intensive use.
Where RAAC replacement is involved, the brief is more complex still. Project teams must manage demolition or isolation of affected structures, temporary operations, stakeholder communication, funding controls, planning, design, and procurement under time pressure. A school may need immediate safety intervention before a long-term solution can be designed, costed, approved, and built.
BAM’s completion of St Leonard’s provides a reference point for the wider programme of affected schools. It demonstrates that permanent replacement can move from emergency response into completed facilities, while also showing the level of coordination needed to keep education running during delivery. Temporary classrooms are a bridge, not a destination, and long-term estate resilience depends on bringing permanent buildings back into use quickly enough to avoid years of educational compromise.
Public-sector clients will be watching cost and programme performance closely. The sector is being asked to modernise estates while construction costs, labour availability, energy standards, and building safety requirements remain demanding. Projects that combine urgency with operational continuity leave little room for weak early surveys, incomplete design, or late procurement drift.
St Leonard’s is the first completed example of how construction teams, education trusts, and government bodies can move from RAAC disruption to long-term rebuilding. The next test is whether that model can be repeated across the estate without allowing temporary disruption to become permanent strain.
