Eden Girls Leadership Academy

Education

CWM Project

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In the town of Small Heath, Birmingham, there has been a growing priority over the last two years to increase school places in the region. As one of the contractor partners on the Constructing West Midlands Framework, Birmingham City Council commissioned Morgan Sindall to design and build a new 48,000 square foot secondary school.

The new development comprises of a three-storey main building which houses, five specialist laboratories, three IT classrooms and 15 general teaching rooms, including a learning resource centre, a reflection hall for prayer and a state-of-the-art catering facility.

External play provision included a multi-use all weather pitch, a 40-space car park, that included disabled and minibus parking and four electric car charging points, and a four-court sports hall.

Despite the challenges incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project was completed five weeks ahead of programme which was made possible thanks to the efficiency of the MySchool model and early involvement of key supply chain partners. By implementing the Morgan Sindall Construction MySchool solution, the team were able to deliver speed and cost-effectiveness using a pre-designed model to develop the new 600-place secondary school. Collaboration during the pre-construction stage was key to the successful build of the school. The team implemented several design features to make sure the building was sustainable and eco-friendly. Significant investments were made by installing all rooms with low energy LED lights and air source heat recovery units.

The location of the main build presented a challenge to our team, as it was located upon a manmade plateau with three steeply sloping sides. By collaborating with our sub-contractor and design team, we were able to construct a 4-metre high by 30-metre-wide precast retaining structure to utilise the available space more efficiently. During the early works we also relocated an existing live substation and electric supply cables that ran down the centre of the new access road and through the centre of the proposed school development.