ABSTRACT
The period between 1915 and 1945 brought considerable consolidation in the education system and saw the beginnings of some experimentation in school design. By the 1980s there was increasing concern that young people were leaving school with too few skills and qualifications. Reform was largely aimed at increasing parental choice and offering a market to parents that would see schools become more accountable to them as ‘customers’. At the start of the new millennium the Department of Education and Skills acknowledged that the education estate was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain and operate and unsuitable for modern school use. Major capital programmes, such as the Priority Schools Building Programme and those supporting academies and free schools, have created a renewed interest in delivering buildings quickly and cheaply. The history of education building in England has been characterised by periods of rapid growth and longer periods of stagnation.
