Hillview School for Girls

Back in 2012, Galliford Try embarked on a journey to engineer a new approach to constructing schools in response to the findings of the then Coalition Government’s James Review and build schools cheaper and quicker. This new proposition was a cheaper and quicker rigorous set of design and construction principles - Optimum Schools.

While some contractors responded by producing an off-the-shelf template design, Galliford Try worked with educators and designers to research and create these principles that would integrate standardisation and repeatability. Crucially, they were aligned with the flexibility to cope with the wide range of variable requirements relating to site conditions, educational requirements and specialist facilities.

This culminated in the very first Optimum School, Hillview School for Girls in Kent, which was completed in 2013.

For the development of Hillview School our procurement team approached the supply chain in an innovative way, inviting key suppliers in an open forum to discuss the principles and how their products and expertise could contribute. This engagement, well before design freeze, led to a re-think of construction methodology, with greater savings and efficiencies.

This collaboration process enabled the first Optimum School to successfully deliver a 30% reduction in cost against the Department for Education’s benchmarks and a programme time of 21 weeks against a 32-week programme if constructed traditionally and led to a Supply Chain Excellence Award from Construction News in 2014.

The Hillview School for Girls project utilised a timber panel system to provide the frame and envelope giving the building excellent thermal performance and air tightness. The off-site manufacturing and installation process not only delivered programme savings but also made the building process quicker to wind and watertight, safer with the dispensation of external scaffolding and took many follow-on and wet trades off the critical path.