More pupils mean greater demand for facilities

Schools have, for many years, been conducting a delicate balancing act to provide a well-rounded education. While budgets are stretched and the pressure on results grows, schools have tried to ensure pupils' favourite subjects are left behind - giving children the opportunity to move from PE to a maths lesson with drama, physics and French after lunch.

Pupils naturally gravitate to what interests them, but schools want to keep options open and not remove lessons from the curriculum. While some pupils may want to study computing and give up music, there will be an equal number who feel the opposite.

This can leave schools resources feeling stretched and some schools felt they needed to justify continuing support for subjects only a select number of pupils choose. Recent news, however, may be an equal blessing and curse.

Figures just a few weeks ago showed that increasing numbers of pupils are going into Further Education, putting schools to greater use but straining them by having greater numbers of pupils. Nearly 41% of Scottish pupils stay on to university, up 3% in six years. Training and vocational courses are also down, as young people stay in school.

The biggest upside is the reduction in 'NEETs', young people Not in Education, Employment or Training, which fell to only 4.5% last year. This in turn means, however, that more are staying on at school in the hope of attending university, resulting in schools having to try harder to provide more at a higher level to meet demand.

With budgets already pushed, there can be a concern that the facilities already there are not enough, but there's not enough money to include more. Undertaking extra building work to provide a larger Sixth Form wing or a music and arts centre doesn't feel like an effective use of funding and the prospect of disruption to school life can be off-putting.

This is where Education Spaces can help. Our unique, bespoke buildings are designed around the amount of school space you have available and construction from Structured Insulated Panels (SIPs) gives you an energy efficient, environmentally friendly build in a much shorter timescale when compared to traditional building methods. Buildings are fabricated offsite, ready to be put together quickly and efficiently on site and because every building is designed around the space you have available, Education Spaces are able to utilise sections of the school ground that are either underused or unsuitable for other types of buildings.

While the numbers of people staying on in education may initially sound like a challenge for schools, given the right set up and facilities, it could actually present an opportunity for educators to build on their expertise and continue to offer all aspects of education to young people.