Catch up each week on building progress by reading the blog from the Kier site team. Students and teachers will be able to read the blog and check on progress from the top floor of the House Block. Interested in finding out about something in particular? E-mail your questions to chobbs@wsbe.org.uk and these will be answered through the blog.

Week beginning 1st June

The school has had a holiday but the site team has been working through! The tower crane was successfully removed – quite a few people were watching with interest from a vantage point in the House block. The building is really taking shape now with nearly all individual rooms constructed. To help them with their planning, the team has hosted a visit from the Head and senior managers, some of whom were seeing the building internally for the first time. In the coming weeks the team will provide opportunities for other staff to go across in small groups to view the school.

This week the team has begun plastering walls on the Ground Floor of the Creative Arts Learning Zone and is about to begin putting on render to some of the exterior walls. A massive rainwater tank is being made in the courtyard between Business and Enterprise and Communications which will hold 20,000 litres.

The biomass storage pit has been cast. A specialist company is creating a bespoke funnel for the woodchips. The power cables to the site are now all in place – so there will be mains power in the building shortly.

Week beginning 4th May 2009

The Site Team are pleased to have reached a very important milestone - the completion of the concrete frame. The tower crane which has been such a feature of the skyline will be dismantled and will leave the site in the next two weeks – this will be an interesting operation so watch out for this from the top of the House Block. The roofing structure to three of the learning zones has been completed and we are digging the pit which will store the wood pellets for the biomass boiler.

Week beginning 23rd March 2009

The building has reached an important milestone with all ground floor slabs now in place. Next week the team will be pouring concrete for the first floor of the Science and Technology zone - 350 cubic metres of it, which will take 14 hours to pour and a further 14 hours to power float. We have around 100 workers on site now - which gives us 1000 man hours per day. Coming soon to site - mechanical and electrical engineering!

Week Commencing 9th March 2009

The first floor slab to the Business and Enterprise zone is being poured at the moment - a massive 300 cubic metres of concrete. The main structure of the roof to the Creative Arts Learning Zone is now on and roofing works will commence the week after next. The Energy Centre structure is complete and fit out will be starting at the end of March. The biomass boiler is due on site very soon.

All ground floor slabs will be complete by the end of next week and the team will turn its attention to internal walls and partitioning - the building is really starting to take shape

Its a significant milestone that mechanical and electrical services will start on site the week after next.

Week Commencing 26th January 2009

The team is currently pouring the first floor slab for the Science and Technology Learning Zone which will use 300 cubic metres of concrete and will take ten hours to pour. The rooms on this floor are mainly science laboratories. The week after next work will begin on the other side of the site with the slab for the ground floor of the Business and Enterprise Learning Zone. The team has chosen to construct the building in this sequence to make movement around the site as easy as possible.

Roof membranes will be going on shortly for the atrium and dining room areas to make them water tight.

Last week the Headteacher was invited to tour the building and climb the stairs for the first time to admire the view from the staff room and sixth form room! An historic moment!

Week Commencing 12th January 2009

The team were back on site refreshed from the Christmas break and by the end of last week had poured the slab to the first floor of the creative Arts Learning Zone, using 360 cubic metres of concrete.

Watch out for a mobile crane on site soon to deal with some movements which are outside of the range of the large tower crane. This week the team is working on creating 4m deep drainage which will take surface water away from the site. The number of workers on site has grown and total hours worked each day has reached 850.

Week Commencing 8th December 2008

This week the team is pouring concrete roof slabs to the dining room and theatre areas and putting up the steel frame to the Energy Centre. We will follow this next week with brick and block work. Floor slabs will be poured this week for the Science and Technology Learning Zone. We are continuing to cast the concrete columns to hold up the first floor casting about half a dozen of these each day. The massive attenuation tank has now been installed and we will begin covering it over now [see last weeks blog for details].

A few statistics for you. To make the slab for the Energy Centre we needed 60 cubic metres of concrete and a slab for a learning zone uses more than 160 cubic metres. Thats a lot of concrete!

As always the team thinks about the environment. We have reused 4000 tonnes of stone from the site. It has been crushed and reused under the building.

Week Commencing 1st December 2008

Roof works to the central sections of the building will begin this week. We are constructing a metal deck roof (a metal sheet forms the base with water proofing membranes on top). It is always the teams priority to get a building weather tight as soon as possible. Concrete frame work is ongoing with seven columns up. Work is still continuing on the energy centre with steel and roof works in the next two weeks.

In the corner of the site you can see the massive hole about the size of a 25m swimming pool which has been prepared to accommodate the storm attenuation tank. This is a massive soakaway for rain water which is designed to cope with a 100-year flood event (this means a 1% probability of occurrence of a severe flood). Please see http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/100yearflood.html. for more information about 100-year floods).

Week Commencing 24th November 2008

This week the team will begin pouring the second section of the ground floor slab(this is the floor base). Concrete frame work will be starting on site this week so you will soon see the columns which support the upper floor. The Energy Centre floor slab will be cast during this week and the structural steel will follow the week after. The tower crane is now fully operational. This impressive piece of kit will deal with all movement of materials around the site and can lift a maximum load of twelve tonnes.