CLAPHAM’S WELL-HEELED

LIBRARY A £6.5m community library in Clapham, south London, designed by Studio Egret West architects, occupies the three lowest floors of this 12-storey building. It features a stepped drum design, a three-storey atrium and a technically challenging cantilever supported on a tapered column nicknamed “The stiletto”.

The 19,000 sq ft building forms part of the wider Clapham One mixed-use regeneration project delivered by a private- public partnership between developer Cathedral Group, United House and Lambeth Council.

Photo: Agnese Sanbito

New course aims to bring BIM to the classroom

A new ICT-based course that aims to open children’s eyes to the range to professions in the built environment will be taught in secondary schools this September. Students opting to study “Design... Engineer... Construct!” will be able to gain a GCSE equivalent qualification. The new qualification is expected

to receive backing from major construction companies, which will offer teachers CPD training opportunities to help them deliver some of the modules, which include BIM and sustainability. Autodesk is already on board as a supporter. Ten secondary schools have

The new course will allow students to gain a GCSE equivalent qualification.

designed to be taught by school teachers rather than in colleges. Watson added: “Construction is

still seen as an issue of jobs for the boys. With this course we almost want to give it a rebrand and make kids realise it’s not about digging a hole or building a wall.” The course focuses on the

signed up to the new curriculum after a series of pilots. The course has been devised by the organisation A Class of Your Own run by former land surveyor Alison Watson. Watson says that unlike the

earlier GCSE in construction, now abandoned, the new course is

professional end of the built environment career spectrum, with a curriculum focusing on real world problems. It covers subjects ranging from energy efficiency to sustainable procurement, setting out and facilities management. The students are introduced to the

principles of BIM and taught how to use design software. Watson said the plan was to

help train design and technology and IT teachers to deliver the new qualification through a series of courses backed by industry. “Some of the schools putting the

course on the curriculum were our original pilots where we worked with children and staff over the last three years to ‘test’ our content,” she said. Accrington Academy and

Archbishop Sentamu in Hull are among the schools running the course this year.

... but unlikely to adopt elements of Construction diploma curriculum

Shepherd Construction is the preferred bidder on Daventy UTC

Despite hopes that the UTCs would partially adopt the Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment, in effect already dropped by mainstream schools, the latest indications are that the colleges will instead duplicate the BTEC qualifications available in FE colleges. CITB-ConstructionSkills and the Baker Dearing Educational Trust had hoped that the four

construction-focused UTCs could offer the Principal Learning component of the diploma, its academic core. But according to Nick Gooderson, head of education and training at CITB-ConstructionSkills, the UTCs have shied away as Principal Learning is seen as equivalent to one GCSE in league tables, even though the volume of work is considered equal to four GCSEs.

Gooderson said it might

be possible to split Principal Learning into four separate qualifications, which would allow UTCs to differentiate their offer from FE colleges. However, time is short as the UTCs opening in September 2013 are now issuing prospectuses. UTCs offer a longer day,

from 8:30am to 5:30pm, and a school year of 40 weeks. This adds an extra year for every two years a student is in the UTC.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | SEPTEMBER 2012 | 5