The ‘Building Schools for the Future’ (BSF) Programme was launched in 2004 by the Labour government (DfES 2004). It is directed at refurbishing or rebuilding all secondary schools in England over a 15 year period, within an overall budget of £45 billion. This paper, located within a critical social policy framework, will briefly describe BSF before exploring some implications for teaching and learning and for teacher education. The BSF programme is clearly located in a policy context in which enhanced skills and knowledge play a key role in the global dynamics of economic competition between states. Its huge infrastructural investment is clearly intended to play a significant role in stimulating and sustaining economic prosperity through enhancing flexibility and adaptability in the labour force. In a complicated set of procedures, BSF is delivered via Local Authorities (LAs), with private sector companies undertaking the rebuilding activities. Although predominantly presented as enhancing the material nature of the nation’s school structure, it is apparent from Government documentation (DCSF 2007, ch.5) that BSF is also grounded within a transformational agenda relating both to education and to the community. One of the key issues we shall consider is the claim that the quality of education, student attainment and community cohesion can be ‘transformed’ by investing in new and refurbished school buildings and appropriate change management strategies. Another is the role assigned to teacher education in these processes. A further focus in the paper will be to consider the implications of BSF for pedagogy, for models of professionalism and workforce restructuring, for dynamics of social differentiation and how these connect with current concepts of teacher preparation as represented, for example, through Professional Standards. From our international contacts we know that comparable developments are occurring transnationally. Though not on the scale of the English initiative which involves every secondary school in England, there are comparable lines of transformation in the Asian sub-continent, mainland Europe, Australia and the USA (Lipman, 2004; Molnar, 2005; Jones et al., 2008) which raises interesting questions about the global reach of policy development (Ozga and Lingard, 2007). For example, the involvement of the private sector in the provision of mass schooling is a topic widely reflected within international academic and research literature (Ball and Youdell 2008; Ashley and Caddell 2006, Mahony et al. 2004). We shall explore the spheres of national and international influences which have generated and informed BSF and its ‘transformational agenda’.

In this paper we concentrate on reporting the results of our documentary analysis. In addition to a review of the literature on the ‘policy technologies’ of contemporary educational reform (Ball, 2008), we shall examine the policy documentation, which constitutes the framework for the BSF programme. Also included in our analysis will be reviews of: policy statements produced by central government: emergent LA materials which ‘translate’ policy into implementation; official and other evaluation reports produced in relation to BSF, e.g. by the House of Commons Education Select Committee, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and education unions and associations. As in our previous research, this developing body of documentation will be analysed in line with contemporary approaches to documentary analysis (Fairclough, 2003 and Mulderrig, 2007). We shall also outline future phases of our research which involve interviews with key actors and case studies of LA’s at various stages of policy ‘implementation’.

BSF could impact greatly on the experiences of all who fall within its ambit. Importantly for Network 10, it will have significant implications for the assumptions, values and procedures influencing teacher education in England which may illuminate future trends elsewhere. Hence the paper is timely, significant and of interest to a wide range of audiences such as: LAs, politicians (local, national and international), Government bodies, private sector companies and consultants, school staff, governors and parents as well as academics. Papers will be presented at national and international conferences as well as at invitational seminars and conferences. We shall place conference papers and details of publications on a project website, issue press releases and hold an end-of-project dissemination seminar. Papers will be submitted to high quality international journals such as EERJ, BERJ and JEP. If the data allow it, we shall also target Gender and Ed. and Race, Ethnicity and Ed.