Friday 21 January 2011
Record Customer Satisfaction Scores!
We tried to explain to head teacher Liam Jackson that our customer satisfaction scores only went from one to ten, but he wasn't having it. Not sure how we are going to include all those 10+ scores into our overall KPI's. well done to all the team!
Saturday 27 March 2010
New Kingsway website
The post below was done by the school as part of their revamped website
The build is still progressing smoothly and rapidly, and the New Foundation Stage and Entrance Foyer are looking superb. All the walls have been plastered and toilet and kitchen areas tiled. The staff room has a lovely new French Door to the field and a new door to the new Staff Lesson Preparation Area. All windows and doors have now been replaced, internal and external. Mr Jackson's office (which was the old boys and girls changing rooms!) and the office staff rooms are now plastered and awaiting redecoration.In the February half term holiday the corridor was completely revamped, with the brick walls being sanded and plastered.
Find out more at http://w129.web4companies.co.uk/411.cfm
Saturday 23 January 2010
Kingsway team up with Garden Gorilla
H&P’s Business Improvement Manager Andrew McCormick and Liam are currently working together on a number of initiatives aimed at aggregating and disseminating best practice on working with schools. These include Garden Gorilla, an organisation aimed at promoting corporate social responsibility and healthier eating through the installation of allotments in schools. Growing your own vegetables in schools has a number of benefits, and fit perfectly into the school’s curriculum. The children have learned about the environment, healthy eating, and what’s needed to produce great veg, and they’ve had a lot of fun along the way. The school has learned that by engaging with the local community and actively seeking out publicity and sponsors, they can achieve great things. Hobson & Porter is sponsoring Kingsway School through Garden Gorilla, and we all look forward to a bumper crop.
Site Managers report - Brian Wilson
We are currently doing the plastering to the new build section. First fix M&E is finished, and the roof is 95% complete. Aluminium fascias are in progress, and all windows are fixed. The refurbishment of the existing school is being carried out in sections to keepp classroom sapace available. Four classrooms are finished, three are in progress, an three more to be commenced.
All the subcontractors have done a sterling job. IES Online are doing the heating and electrical, and doing a first class job. Allied Glazing from Sheffield are working for me for the first time, and have been exceptional, and joiners D&P Mitchell are performing at the same high standard that I've come to expect from them.
All the subcontractors have done a sterling job. IES Online are doing the heating and electrical, and doing a first class job. Allied Glazing from Sheffield are working for me for the first time, and have been exceptional, and joiners D&P Mitchell are performing at the same high standard that I've come to expect from them.
Environmental Audit
We asked Mike Raven at East Riding Council to drop in and cary out an environmental audit with our site team. Find out more at our ThinkZero blog
Teamwork is the key to success!
The relationship we established with the head teacher Liam Jackson has been vital to the successful delivery of the works within this busy primary school. We asked Liam to write us a brief report outlining how he works collaboratively with Hobson & Porter to identify and overcome the issues involved in working in a busy school environment:
Pre commencement: We took a detailed look at how our school operates with H&P, to fully understand how the school works. We discussed the strengths & weaknesses of the site (2 drives, deliveries, curriculum, field, shared site with adjoining childrens centre and special school etc). From this, we changed the initial location of H&P’s site in the school. A letter was sent out to ALL local residents signed by the school and H&P to explain what was going to happen.
Detailed Health & safety walks/talks took place – and have been added to and changed on a daily basis if an issue has arisen from either the school or H&P.
The governors were fully involved, especially the Chair and H&S Governor, who are updated on a weekly basis by the Head.
Partners – a close working relationship was developed with Home Start/Children’s Centre on site, as the start of the build had huge impact on their access and parking. Success proved – no complaints at all (and actually, since project started, only one complaint sent in due to a mains electric cable being clipped in the early days!)
Children – 2 special assemblies were held with H&P, with H&S focus, and a competition to design posters agreed and £10 vouchers donated to the winners of each class (14 in total!) Both assemblies were great – and children felt part of the project and now take full interest in it. Again – down to good communication.
OFSTED – due to new “safe guarding” issues introduced in Sept 2009, this became a BIG issue. H&P worked very closely with the School Business Manager to ensure children, parents and the school were safe. Over a very short period, this was all achieved by H&S meetings, site walks and lots of new signage being made by H&P. Flexibility on both sides was crucial
Xmas – the school arranged Christmas lunch for H&P and contractors as goodwill measure as we all work so well together.
Press – we’ve been in the local papers 3 times now – where H&P were praised for their work – all good publicity and makes parents and partners feel that a good job is being done!
Changes – there were plenty of changes to plans, especially by the school, as the project progressed. As the site manager has worked so well with us, this again has helped the project to operate smoothly!
Workmen – though they do not have much to do with the children, they are in school in numbers. As they are all so pleasant, children really take no notice of them (even though they “know” them now) which is great.
Therefore, the key has been to work well together, develop strong relationships and all be flexible in plans, discussions and outcomes. This we have done, and though a big potentially very disruptive project, we have all kept disruption down to a minimum. Key to our success with H&P has been site manager, Mr Brian Wilson – who has been truly fantastic and a credit to H&P. On our side, my senior business manager, Tina Garland, has been superb and thrown herself into the project completely. This needs to happen – one key link in the school who the head trusts completely to work with the site manager. Do this and you get success!!!!! (Liam Jackson – Head)
Pre commencement: We took a detailed look at how our school operates with H&P, to fully understand how the school works. We discussed the strengths & weaknesses of the site (2 drives, deliveries, curriculum, field, shared site with adjoining childrens centre and special school etc). From this, we changed the initial location of H&P’s site in the school. A letter was sent out to ALL local residents signed by the school and H&P to explain what was going to happen.
Detailed Health & safety walks/talks took place – and have been added to and changed on a daily basis if an issue has arisen from either the school or H&P.
The governors were fully involved, especially the Chair and H&S Governor, who are updated on a weekly basis by the Head.
Partners – a close working relationship was developed with Home Start/Children’s Centre on site, as the start of the build had huge impact on their access and parking. Success proved – no complaints at all (and actually, since project started, only one complaint sent in due to a mains electric cable being clipped in the early days!)
Children – 2 special assemblies were held with H&P, with H&S focus, and a competition to design posters agreed and £10 vouchers donated to the winners of each class (14 in total!) Both assemblies were great – and children felt part of the project and now take full interest in it. Again – down to good communication.
OFSTED – due to new “safe guarding” issues introduced in Sept 2009, this became a BIG issue. H&P worked very closely with the School Business Manager to ensure children, parents and the school were safe. Over a very short period, this was all achieved by H&S meetings, site walks and lots of new signage being made by H&P. Flexibility on both sides was crucial
Xmas – the school arranged Christmas lunch for H&P and contractors as goodwill measure as we all work so well together.
Press – we’ve been in the local papers 3 times now – where H&P were praised for their work – all good publicity and makes parents and partners feel that a good job is being done!
Changes – there were plenty of changes to plans, especially by the school, as the project progressed. As the site manager has worked so well with us, this again has helped the project to operate smoothly!
Workmen – though they do not have much to do with the children, they are in school in numbers. As they are all so pleasant, children really take no notice of them (even though they “know” them now) which is great.
Therefore, the key has been to work well together, develop strong relationships and all be flexible in plans, discussions and outcomes. This we have done, and though a big potentially very disruptive project, we have all kept disruption down to a minimum. Key to our success with H&P has been site manager, Mr Brian Wilson – who has been truly fantastic and a credit to H&P. On our side, my senior business manager, Tina Garland, has been superb and thrown herself into the project completely. This needs to happen – one key link in the school who the head trusts completely to work with the site manager. Do this and you get success!!!!! (Liam Jackson – Head)
Monday 23 November 2009
Learning through Experience
We learn more when things go wrong, and by involving the whole supply chain we see this as opportunities to improve. At Kingsway School we received a Prohibition Notice from the HSE. Although the subject of the notice was seen as very harsh (work was not stopped) we recognised that there were some significant underlying issues to be resolved. The notice related to an unprotected edge of a platform. We got all the key parties together, from the client down to the subcontractor and scaffolder, and produced a case study on the need for a collaborative approach to safety. This indicated that the problem that led to the Prohibition Notice started as a design issue i.e. that the building was designed in such a way as to necessitate working with an unprotected internal edge unless specialist access equipment was used. Our “no blame” approach meant that we were able to work collaboratively with our supply chain to ensure that shared learning outputs were generated – we are now planning a workshop with the client to investigate the role of design in managing safety.
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