Facilities Management Service

Eco-friendly Brunton First School is a spacious single storey building which has capacity for 150 pupils aged 4 to 9 years old. It is located on Newcastle Great Park, a pioneering sustainable urban development just three miles from the city centre.
The school was built by Aura under a Design and Build Contract and was completed on time and budget in August 2009.

The high-tech school includes six state-of-the-art classrooms, flexible learning spaces and there are two multi-purpose halls.  There is also a studio integrating a design and food technology room, a library and a large learning resources area. In addition, the entire school benefits from wireless ICT facilities.

The construction included carbon reduction technology in the form of Ground Source Heat Pumps and energy efficiency measures controlled by a Building Management system.

As with all new schools built to meet current standards, it involved modern technology and specialist systems which require robust specialised maintenance regimes to ensure they remain at their optimum performance to ensure the asset reaches its anticipated life expectancy.

To achieve this level of performance the School have commissioned Aura Facilities Management (FM) Traded Services on their behalf.

FM  Traded Services are those services which are ‘traded’ in such a way that the client can ‘cherry-pick’ those that they require from a menu.

It is a flexible solution which can be tailored around the client’s requirements with a view to achieving value for money through the customer buying exactly what is needed to support their business’s activity– nothing more or less.

Brunton First School benefits from this unique way to create its own package of services, as is the way with all public sector bodies in the current climate, reducing costs and value for money are extremely important considerations.

The School chose Essential Maintenance services that would ensure the School met its statutory obligations and the School remained open, fully functional and protected the health and wellbeing of all the occupants, these included:

• Essential Maintenance
• Helpdesk
• Energy Management
• Grounds Service

Another benefit for the School was that in choosing Aura as a partner for the FM Service it has ensured that there has been continuity from construction to the operational service of the school, which delivers benefits when dealing with any matters that relate to construction.

As Brunton is an entirely new school in a newly founded community Aura has also been able to assist the School with its budget management by phasing the annual premium over the initial three year period whilst the pupil numbers increase from circa 40 to 150 as the new pupil intake moves through the School.