When it comes to jargon, the Building Schools for the Future programme in England takes a lot of beating. I’ve railed against the Department for Education for its awful predilection for driving agendas forward and delivering targets or whatever, but really they’re just amateurs at this stuff. Here’s a newsletter article I wrote in 2005:

Just in case anyone doubted that it now helps to be completely insane in education in the UK these days, or at least to have a good memory for new acronyms or sets of initials, here is an extract from "Building Schools for the Future: The client design advisor", published by the Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment (CABE), and available from http://www.cabe.org.uk/publications/:

"Over the next 15 years, the Building Schools for the Future programme will rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England. Local education authorities (LEAs) will form joint ventures with private sector partners (PSPs), and the central government delivery vehicle, Partnerships for Schools (PfS), to form local education partnerships (LEPs). Each LEP will be in charge of providing the design and construction work, as well as maintaining buildings and grounds for the LEA."

That, of course, is simply reportage, so there is no point in shooting the messenger. But very soon we learn that part of the job description of a "CDA" consists of:

"using DQIs and BREs environmental assessment method (BREEAM) to evaluate the design proposals".

We finally learn what a DQI and BRE are on the last page. Personally, I found the document completely unreadable, but unfortunately it is required reading for anyone involved in the Building Schools for the Future programme because LEPs are required by law to appoint CDAs (see, this stuff is catching) -- at least, I THINK that's what the document says.

I am not sure if this is reading too much into it, but one of the illustrations in the publication shows a very important looking person drawing up a design while 3 school pupils watch. Is that what the Department for Education and Science (DfES) means by pupil participation?

Interestingly enough, if you try that website now — http://www.cabe.org.uk/ — it takes you to an online casino. It seems strangely fitting somehow.