Guidance

Area guidelines and net capacity

Standards and guidance on the area of school buildings and grounds, and the number of pupil places available in school buildings.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 20 July 2018

Documents

Area guidelines for mainstream schools: building bulletin 103

PDF, 1.41 MB, 45 pages

Notes on area guidelines for mainstream schools: building bulletin 103

HTML

Area guidelines for SEND and alternative provision: building bulletin 104

PDF, 2.34 MB, 88 pages

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Notes on area guidelines for SEND and alternative provision: building bulletin 104

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Details

The guidance in these building bulletins helps building professionals, school sponsors and others to work out the appropriate amount of space for teaching and learning activities.

Building bulletin 103 refers to the schedule of accommodation tool. Primary and secondary schools can use this tool to create a schedule of accommodation, comparing this to existing buildings where necessary. This links to the school specific brief annex SS1, part of the output specification, which is used to form part of the employer requirements on capital projects.

The standard method for measuring the number of pupil places available in any school is by net capacity assessment. The Department for Education has published a tool to carry out net capacity assessment.

Published 20 July 2018