Makeover at Portslade School: Julian Stanley is treated to a fascinating excursion during the Labour Party Conference in Brighton.

Big School Makeover at Portslade Community College impacts wellbeing: Teacher Support Network Chief Executive, Julian Stanley, and Head of Communcations and Business Development, Hannah Essex, recently visited Portslade Community School to see how improvements to the school environment were improving thanks to the 'Big School Makeover' scheme

Our remarks on National Audit Office report about Building Schools for the Future programme: Teachers and students need high quality school buildings urgently, but standards must not be compromised for the sake of speed. The Government is rightly learning lessons from the early stages of Building Schools for the Future - reforming elements of procurement accordingly - and it must continue to do this as the programme accelerates.

Build a better future for your school: Teacher Support Network react to new report arguing for greater teacher involvement in the Building Schools for the Future programme

PwC report mirrors our own findings: We commend the PwC report, which mirrors the findings of our ‘Just another brick in the wall’ publication released in partnership with the British Council for School Environments last year.

Teachers want greater involvement in £7 billion redesign of primary schools: Teacher Support Network today welcomed the Department of Children, Schools and Families’ announcement to rebuild hundreds of primary schools as part of the £7 billion Primary Capital Programme.

More about it

From the Introduction: In 2007, Teacher Support Network and the British Council for School Environments (BCSE) conducted a joint survey of 530 teachers on school buildings.

• Just 12% said that their building provided an effective learning environment.
• A resounding 87% believed that school environments influence pupil behaviour.
• 60% said that their school didn’t have an adjustable environment to support curriculum delivery.

The survey clearly demonstrated that poor facilities can have a damaging impact on the performance and wellbeing of pupils and school staff. Poor acoustics can hamper communication and affect teachers’ confidence, for example, whilst poor temperature control can affect concentration, damaging teaching and learning alike.

Investment in school buildings has increased significantly in recent years. School annual capital spending is already above £6 billion and is set to rise to over £8 billion by 2010-11, but it is vital that every penny is spent wisely.

In June 2008, Teacher Support Network and BCSE hosted a roundtable meeting with key stakeholders involved in the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. The attendees - including architects, teaching unions and the DCSF – identified a number of problems that need to be addressed.