Design for the DfE: Schools as Civic Infrastructure

As the new CF25 framework now comes into play, it brings renewed focus on the future of the UK’s education landscape. Beyond delivering an expansive school’s building programme, it presents an opportunity to shape environments that influence how young people learn, how communities connect, and how places evolve over time. The next generation of schools must not only support education today but actively contribute to healthier, more resilient futures for the communities they serve.

Within the context of the 2025 spending review, SRP expansion, and the ambitious regeneration goals the government has set, the role of the architect on this new framework expands beyond compliance. It becomes about using each project to unlock regenerative potential and create lasting value for the places it serves, and about understanding how this can be accomplished within the constraints of strict technical frameworks and cost parameters.

Schools are more than educational facilities; they are civic anchors. Much like how universities and colleges have long acted as tools for regeneration, primary and secondary schools across the UK are now increasingly being harnessed as foundational community infrastructure – playing a more visible role in shaping and improving communities. From hosting wraparound childcare and wellbeing services to supporting local activity beyond the school day, schools are evolving into multi-functional neighbourhood assets that strengthen social ties, improve access to local support, and help anchor everyday civic life.

For design and build teams, this means considering how school buildings interface with their surroundings – how they frame streets, connect to green space, and contribute to civic presence. Whether working within new developments or regenerating existing sites, thoughtful implementation of these strategies can generate ripple effects – improving connectivity and creating more active public realms.

At first glance, embedding these ambitions within the tight parameters of DfE programmes can seem challenging. In practice, however, when integrated early and thoughtfully, they often reinforce delivery outcomes rather than complicate them. Designing with community impact in mind can build local buy-in, smoothing planning processes and fostering long-term stakeholder support. Similarly, engaging with the wider site context often leads to better spatial outcomes without introducing additional cost.

Early landscape and masterplanning decisions play a defining role in whether a school contributes positively to placemaking at a neighbourhood scale. Landscape often provides the most immediate interface between school and community. It shapes first impressions, supports informal interaction, and helps schools feel embedded within their surroundings rather than set apart from them.

Well-considered landscape strategies can encourage walking and cycling, create informal social and learning spaces, and support student wellbeing. They also allow schools to act as connectors within broader green networks, reinforcing local identity and environmental quality. By using these landscape-led approaches to support sustainable commuting, schools can also play a role in reducing local transport-related emissions and improving safety in high traffic pick-up/drop-off times. Thoughtfully designed planting and external environments can act as protective infrastructure for children – improving air quality, mitigating urban heat, and supporting communities both in the longer-term transition towards a net zero future and in mitigating climate change effects.

From a delivery perspective, this early thinking is pragmatic. Late-stage landscape interventions are often costly and less successful. By embedding landscape strategy early and aligning with local planning ambitions, projects can move more smoothly through approvals and avoid late-stage redesign.

Internal planning can be just as influential as external placemaking. Schools that successfully connect with their communities often do so through carefully designed shared spaces that extend their value beyond the school day. Flexible halls, sports facilities, studios, catering facilities, and performance areas can act as bridges between school life and community use – particularly when designed with controlled access and safeguarding in mind.

Crucially, these spaces also create more opportunities for families to engage meaningfully with school life. When we position civic-facing functions at key thresholds and create environments that feel open, welcoming, and accessible, we help foster stronger relationships between schools and parents or carers – supporting everything from informal daily interaction to events, performances, and shared activities. This sense of familiarity and belonging can play an important role in strengthening trust, improving engagement, and supporting better outcomes for students.

These moves can also support stronger business cases. Multi-functional spaces reduce the need for separate community infrastructure, while shared-use models can unlock additional funding streams and broaden stakeholder support.

Placemaking does not always begin with a blank slate. Many DfE projects involve working within existing campuses, historic settings, or constrained sites. In these contexts, meaningful placemaking comes from intelligently blending old and new – not just as a design response, but as a way of maintaining continuity with the communities a school serves.

Schools are often deeply embedded within local identity, with buildings carrying memories across generations. Thoughtfully retaining and integrating existing elements can help preserve that sense of familiarity and belonging, ensuring that change feels evolutionary rather than disruptive. When handled well, marrying old and new becomes a powerful way of strengthening community connection while still delivering forward-looking environments for learning.

New buildings can respond to heritage and local character in ways that feel authentic rather than nostalgic. At the same time, sensitive refurbishment and adaptation can preserve embodied carbon, retain valued assets, and unlock sites that might otherwise be considered unviable. This layered approach allows schools to evolve while maintaining a tangible link to their past.

From a practical standpoint, this approach can also support deliverability. Reducing demolition lowers material costs and programme risks, while maintaining elements of familiar environments can build trust among stakeholders and local communities – particularly where schools act as long-standing civic anchors.

Good school design must serve both present and future needs. The most successful education environments are those that can evolve alongside the places around them – responding not only to shifts in pedagogy, but to changing patterns of community life, local growth, and social need.

Designing for adaptability at this scale means thinking beyond immediate operational requirements. Flexible layouts, multi-use spaces, and thoughtfully planned expansion strategies allow schools to support a wider range of community functions over time. Spaces that can accommodate wraparound provision, local events, adult learning, or evolving civic uses help ensure schools remain active and relevant well beyond the school day.

In this sense, adaptability becomes a placemaking strategy. Schools that can flex with their communities are more likely to remain valued, well-used, and embedded within local life. They can support demographic change, respond to new neighbourhoods, and continue to act as civic anchors as places evolve around them.

Within the DfE framework, this kind of future-readiness is not an added extra – it is a form of long-term resilience. Designing with community adaptability in mind helps protect public investment, reducing the need for disruptive interventions later while ensuring schools remain meaningful assets for generations.

Placemaking is not separate from performance – it underpins it. Schools that contribute positively to their surroundings are more resilient, more valued, and better equipped to support future generations.

Bond Bryan’s experience across the CF21 framework demonstrates that strong placemaking and reliable delivery are not competing priorities. On the CF25, there is a clear opportunity to continue raising expectations – designing schools that not only meet technical requirements but also enrich communities and shape the future of the UK’s educational landscape.