IN Brief:
- BAM is delivering Department for Education rebuilding projects at Friesland School, Perryfields Academy and The Royal School Wolverhampton.
- The £30m Friesland building in Sandiacre has reached steel frame completion and will provide around 5,500 square metres for more than 1,300 pupils.
- The three separate schemes are intended to improve education facilities for approximately 4,000 pupils across the Midlands.
BAM UK & Ireland has completed the structural steel frame of a new £30m building at Friesland School in Sandiacre, Derbyshire, as part of three Department for Education school redevelopments across the Midlands. The contractor is also delivering projects at Perryfields Academy and The Royal School Wolverhampton. Together, the schemes are intended to improve teaching and support facilities for approximately 4,000 pupils, although each development has its own construction scope and timetable.
The Friesland building will provide approximately 5,500 square metres of accommodation for more than 1,300 pupils, with an opening targeted for the 2027 academic year. Its planned facilities include ICT, art and humanities rooms, a sports hall, changing accommodation, a kitchen, dining areas and an assembly hall. The sports hall is also intended to serve the local community outside normal school use. The reported £30m value applies to Friesland, not to BAM’s entire three-school programme.
Completion of the steelwork marks the point at which the new building’s main load-bearing frame is established. Construction still requires the roof and external envelope, internal partitions, building services, permanent finishes and the testing needed before the accommodation can be used safely. Teaching rooms and sports spaces demand different electrical, ventilation and acoustic arrangements, so the structural milestone leaves substantial fit-out and commissioning work ahead of the intended school opening.
BAM describes the Friesland redevelopment as a net-zero carbon project. That is a stated project objective rather than a measured account of energy performance after occupation. The completed building fabric, heating and ventilation equipment, lighting controls and use of specialist classrooms will all influence how the finished school performs. The contractor has not provided an operational energy dataset demonstrating that the new facilities have already achieved a particular annual net balance.
At Perryfields Academy, the contractor is undertaking a comprehensive replanning of the school campus, replacing ageing accommodation and rearranging how learning facilities are provided. The campus redesign is at a different delivery stage from the £30m Friesland building, and no equivalent value, floor area or steel-frame completion has been confirmed for Perryfields. Its scope and progress must therefore be distinguished from the Friesland milestone.
The Royal School Wolverhampton project combines new construction with extensions and refurbishment across a functioning school estate. BAM says the completed facilities are intended to support around 1,510 pupils, including between 60 and 80 boarders. The works cover a new primary school, improvements to secondary teaching accommodation, extensions to sports and design technology facilities, and upgrades to boarding areas, external space and parking. Different buildings will require different handover and access arrangements.
A Grade II listed building within The Royal School’s estate adds a heritage dimension to that programme. The contractor must coordinate improvements to teaching, access and building services with the conservation requirements applying to protected fabric. BAM identifies sensitive refurbishment among the planned works but has not detailed every approved intervention. Existing buildings can also constrain the routes available for new services, materials deliveries and temporary facilities, particularly while education activities continue nearby.
The school’s own information describes enabling works, access changes and site preparation as parts of the wider construction programme. Continuing teaching and boarding operations places particular demands on segregation of the worksite from pupils and staff, management of heavy vehicle deliveries and control of noise or dust near occupied areas. Those requirements affect construction sequencing and the timing of individual handovers; they should not be confused with evidence that a particular incident has occurred on the project.
The three schemes encompass secondary education at Friesland, a redesigned academy campus at Perryfields, and primary, secondary and boarding provision at Wolverhampton. That combination explains the variety of facilities involved, from ordinary classrooms to specialist teaching spaces and accommodation used outside the school day. A pupil total across all three sites is a measure of the population expected to benefit, not the designed capacity of the new Friesland building or a total number of new places.
The Department for Education is delivering the work through its School Rebuilding Programme, which is intended to replace or improve school facilities that have reached the point where extensive renewal is required. BAM’s regional update identifies new construction, refurbishment and extension packages rather than one shared contract with a single handover date. The Royal School’s published programme extends over a longer period than Friesland’s planned 2027 opening, with activity continuing towards 2029.
At Friesland, the next construction phases involve enclosing the steel structure and completing the interior and specialist teaching facilities before testing and occupation. Work at Perryfields and The Royal School Wolverhampton will continue according to their separate programmes. The confirmed October milestone is Friesland’s frame completion, with construction and refurbishment still progressing across all three sites.
