Specialist systems and outsourcing services expert kicks off seven-year, 25-school renewal with central learning suite.
14 May 2010, London: Civica, a market leader in specialist systems and outsourcing services that help organisations improve service delivery and efficiency, will begin work on Wolverhampton City Council’s new £370 million Building Schools for the Future programme by implementing its central ICT learning platform – the first phase of the seven-year investment programme to be delivered.
The council’s BSF programme is being delivered by a Carillion-led consortium and will see building and refurbishment of 25 of the city’s secondary schools, including new learning facilities, by 2017.
The Carillion-led consortium, supported by Civica and Capita, will provide the schools with world class education and learning facilities through a managed service to be available to the first schools from September 2012. The new facilities will feature the central learning infrastructure from Civica.
The Wolverhampton programme is Civica’s fourth BSF ICT integration project for the national Partnership for Schools (PfS) Agency, following programmes at Sheffield, Barnsley and Luton.
The new central learning ICT platform, called the Civica Learning Suite, will help deliver a state-of-the-art system with a safe and secure underlying infrastructure, available from January 2011. This installation will provide one of the foundations for dynamic online teaching and learning across the different schools.
The combined ICT central and school platforms will equip schools with key resources - including personalised learning, access to school chat rooms, subject-based blogs, online timetabling and homework setting - effectively from the very early stages of the project. The main building and refurbishment programme will then be progressed over the remaining contract period.
Simon Downing, Civica chief executive, said: "We’re delighted to be part of the Carillion consortium and to be working with Wolverhampton City Council to transform learning and education for students and young people across the city. We look forward to delivering a modern IT-based environment as part of the consortium and to providing the secure and flexible foundation to meet current and future educational needs.”
About Building Schools for the Future
BSF is the Government’s national schools investment programme, managed by Partnerships for Schools (PfS) on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, formerly the Department for Education and Skills). BSF is designed to transform education through improving all of England’s secondary school buildings and facilities over the next 10 to 15 years (subject to future public spending decisions).