How to ensure new special schools are built sustainably

The Government’s commitment to invest £105 million in 15 new free special schools is an opportunity to increase national provision capacity for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) sustainably.

More than 1.5 million young people have special educational needs and the shortage of SEND placements and lack of funding has left hundreds of children without an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and struggling to secure adequate support.

The development of new SEND facilities should reduce this pressure somewhat, but project stakeholders will need to ensure that the new buildings meet the Department for Education’s (DfE) net zero targets and facility output specifications without compromising the quality of learning.

The right materials

However, investing in greener SEND facilities comes with challenges. Schools and stakeholders need to balance the introduction of sustainable materials with convenience and accessibility for students.

For example, plasterboard is a recyclable product used as lining board in many building projects, but is less suitable for SEND installations which require more robust materials in accordance with the output specification.

Instead, wood and materials with higher impact resistance are better suited to create the sustainable and supportive environment for many students with SEND needs. Wood is one of the most sustainable building materials because it can store large amounts of carbon, making it a key solution for dramatically reducing carbon in the built environment.

Schools providing SEND services also need to consider how a building’s thermal comfort affects learning, particularly when purchasing greener facilities. Classrooms that are too hot or too cold are often uncomfortable environments for children and staff to work in and can be distressing for students with sensory sensitivities.

While buildings constructed with lower mass materials such as wood usually retain heat more efficiently due to their thermal performance, solutions using higher mass materials such as concrete can result in higher heating costs.

Schools will therefore need to consider an approach that balances thermal comfort when using lightweight, wood-based building solutions. For example, this can be achieved by introducing a specific mass into the ceilings, such as an exposed concrete soffit through a precast concrete slab.

A fabric first approach

This hybrid construction between a kit solution and the use of concrete and steel allows heat to be absorbed into the ceiling, while maintaining internal thermal comfort and ensuring that the building’s embodied carbon remains low.

This fabric-based approach to design and construction is key to improving durability. For example, buildings with strong fabric performance will better support the inclusion of air source heat pumps, as air permeability is essential to their operation.

Equally, while many schools are installing photovoltaic (PV) panels to generate their own clean energy and lower utility costs, the lifetime of PV is shorter than most school buildings. Schools will face costs for replacing PV panels many times over and will be challenged to dispose of them sustainably.

Investing in buildings with a high fabric performance is therefore a long-term solution to achieving energy efficiency and reducing climate change contributions.

Careful construction

Increasingly, the education sector is turning to modern construction methods (MMC) to increase properties sustainably. Manufactured buildings or off-site manufacturing ticks many boxes for schools offering SEND provision. Factory-manufactured components are delivered quickly with limited disruption to site activities.

For students with SEND, the noise pollution of a live construction site can be damaging, not to mention other hazards such as silica dust from cutting materials containing sand.

Manufacturing construction parts in a factory not only overcomes these challenges, but simultaneously reduces waste and provides greater precision in the final product. This is essential when tuning acoustic performance.

As stated in Building Bulletin 93, students with hearing impairments, autism, and other special needs may be very sensitive to the acoustic environment, especially when noises have loud, impulsive, or intermittent tonal characteristics.

Manufacturing buildings in a controlled environment will ensure that the desired acoustics are achieved to a high standard, while reducing the presence of noise pollution on site during construction.

As schools offering SEND juggle increasing job demand and pressure to meet environmental, social and governance commitments, this latest injection of government funding opens a window to purchase greener facilities.

Given multiple sustainable options, collaboration between schools and providers is needed to ensure that students’ needs continue to be met.