Created: 2nd July, 2026
Robert joined Barker in 2002 and is a Partner based in our Braintree office. A Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, he has over 20 years’ experience of all core building surveying services and provides strategic estates advice to key accounts in the education, commercial, ecclesiastical and public sectors.
An education specialist, he provides the following services: estates and energy strategy, asset management planning, project management and capital funding applications.
Robert works closely with clients to plan and implement energy efficiency and sustainability strategies to save money, reduce carbon emissions and meet ESG objectives.
As a RICS Certified Historic Buildings Professional he provides conservation consultancy for clients with listed and historic buildings.
Robert is an experienced APC Assessor and Chairman and is also an external examiner for Anglia Ruskin University
As a Partner Robert leads the Business Development and Marketing function at Barker, builds relationships with key sector bodies and helps steer the strategic growth of the company.
Email: rgould@barker-associates.co.uk
Tel: 01279 648057
The Department for Education (DfE) has recently published its new Inclusive education estates guidance. On one level, it is a practical document about buildings, spaces, and adaptations. On another, it is a clear signal of where policy is moving: towards a more inclusive mainstream system in which the physical environment is recognised as part of the solution, not a backdrop to it.
This matters because the guidance does not appear in isolation. It sits alongside the government’s Schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, which makes the case that high standards and inclusion are not competing agendas but “two sides of the same coin”. The White Paper commits to a more inclusive mainstream offer, backed by new investment, and places significant emphasis on children and young people with SEND being able to thrive in their local school wherever possible.
The new estates guidance brings that ambition into the built environment. It is non-statutory, but it is unlikely to be optional in practice.
As responsible bodies increasingly align capital investment with the Education Estates Strategy, the guidance provides a clear benchmark for what the DfE now considers good practice in creating suitable, inclusive learning environments. It translates research, inclusive design principles and practical examples into a framework that local authorities, trusts and school leaders can use to identify barriers, prioritise improvements, and make more effective use of existing space.
It also sits alongside the Education Estates Strategy, which sets out the government’s ten-year vision for a safer, more suitable, more sustainable and more inclusive education estate.
Perhaps most importantly, the new guidance provides practical expression to the Strategy’s “Suitable” objective, which commits to creating an estate that is “flexible to changes in demographics and suitable to deliver inclusive education, skills and support for children, young people and families.” Rather than introducing a new policy direction, the guidance shows what suitability looks like in practice and how responsible bodies can begin embedding inclusive design into everyday estate planning and investment decisions.
What is striking about the guidance is its breadth. It is not confined to accessibility in the narrowest sense. Instead, it identifies ten core design elements:
In doing so, it reflects a much fuller understanding of what inclusion means in practice.
That is particularly important in the context of SEND. Many of the barriers pupils experience are environmental: noisy circulation routes, overwhelming dining spaces, poor wayfinding, harsh lighting, visual clutter, inaccessible toilets, or simply a lack of calm places for regulation or small-group support. The guidance is helpful because it moves the conversation away from treating those issues as isolated pastoral concerns and frames them instead as design, estates and management issues that can be addressed systematically.
It also makes an important distinction between specialist provision and mainstream adaptation. Within the wider DfE design framework, BB 103 remains the area guidance for mainstream schools and BB 104 remains the area guidance for SEND and alternative provision.
The new document does something different. It helps mainstream settings learn from inclusive and specialist practice without assuming that every school needs a specialist solution in every instance. That is especially valuable for schools adapting existing buildings rather than commissioning new ones.
In that respect, one of the most welcome aspects of the guidance is its pragmatism. It explicitly says inclusive design is not about expensive specialist interventions everywhere. In fact, some of its most useful recommendations are relatively modest: clearer circulation, quieter finishes, better visual cues, more predictable layouts, improved lighting, acoustic treatment, sheltered outdoor areas, repurposed small rooms, and calmer toilet and dining provision.
It also notes that quiet, low-stimulation spaces may often be more useful than a generic “sensory room” approach.
There is strong evidence behind this. The guidance points to research showing that classroom design can have a measurable effect on learning progress, and that factors such as light, temperature, air quality, flexibility and colour matter.
It also draws on evidence linking access to natural environments with improved attention, reduced stress and better wellbeing. None of that means design can substitute for excellent teaching or effective support. But it does reinforce an important point: the physical environment can either remove barriers to participation or compound them.
For those involved in planning and managing the education estate, the message is clear. Inclusive environments should not be treated as a late-stage compliance exercise. They should be considered early, assessed carefully, and reviewed in use.
That is consistent not only with the DfE’s own technical requirements and building bulletins, but also with wider industry tools such as PAS 6463 and the RIBA Inclusive Design Overlay, both of which stress early briefing, stakeholder engagement and whole-project accountability for inclusive outcomes.
For schools, trusts and local authorities, the strategic significance goes further than the publication of another design guide.
Within the Education Estates Strategy, one of the four overarching objectives is to create an estate that is “Suitable”, one that is adaptable to changing educational, demographic and community needs while supporting inclusive education for all learners, including those with SEND and vulnerable children.
The Inclusive Education Estates Guidance provides much of the practical framework for achieving that ambition. It reinforces the Strategy’s principles of creating flexible, adaptable learning environments that can evolve over time, making inclusive design a core consideration in estate strategy rather than something reserved for specialist provision or major capital projects.
This is particularly relevant as many schools and trusts respond to changing pupil numbers and evolving patterns of demand. Where falling rolls create surplus accommodation, the conversation should move beyond simply reducing space or cutting costs.
The new guidance provides an opportunity to review how existing accommodation can be repurposed to better support inclusion; for example, creating nurture spaces, breakout rooms, small-group teaching areas or dedicated inclusion bases that enhance mainstream provision.
In that sense, sufficiency and suitability become closely connected. Estate reviews should no longer ask only “How much space do we need?” but also “How can this space better support every learner?”
This feels like an important development. Inclusive design in education is not just about meeting need; it is about creating places where more children and young people can belong, participate and succeed.
For mainstream settings in particular, that means thinking carefully about the everyday experience of the school day: arrival, movement, transitions, teaching spaces, dining, outdoor areas, toilets, support rooms and the quiet moments in between. When those environments work well, they support not only accessibility, but attendance, confidence, regulation and readiness to learn.
Increasingly, we are seeing this in practice. At St Anne’s Catholic High School, working with Cranmer Education Trust, Barker has been helping to develop proposals that repurpose and expand existing accommodation to create an enhanced inclusion base.
It is a good example of the direction of travel set out in both the Education Estates Strategy and the new guidance making better use of the existing estate to improve suitability, rather than assuming inclusion always requires new buildings.
We expect this type of project to become increasingly common as responsible bodies review their estates in response to changing demographics, evolving educational need and the wider shift towards strategic estate planning.
The challenge now is implementation. The guidance gives the sector a practical framework. The opportunity is to use it not as a checklist, but as a starting point for a more thoughtful conversation about how estate decisions can support inclusive education in the broadest and most meaningful sense.
Inclusive design and the future of education estates will feature in Barker’s presentations at both the Education Estates® Conference in Manchester and the Confederation of School Trusts National Conference in Birmingham, where we will continue to share practical insights and support responsible bodies in translating national policy into successful estate strategies.
Speak to Barker about inclusive education estates strategy and how your existing buildings can better support SEND and mainstream inclusion.
