Education Estates Strategy: A Decade of National Renewal

Yesterday, Wednesday 11 February 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) released its Education Estates Strategy: A Dec …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
2 min read
12-Feb-2026 14:49:35

The Clock is Ticking: Are you at Level 3?

It has been roughly ten months since the DfE officially launched the School Estate Management Standards on 23 April 2025 …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
4 min read
04-Feb-2026 12:21:10

Life Cycles - Why They Matter So Much

I was reading a Sky News article this morning about the UK weather forecast. According to the Met Office, temperatures c …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
2 min read
22-Jan-2026 12:00:11

What Estates Team Culture Really Means

Over the Christmas break I was chatting to an architect who works on new school builds. We got onto a project he’d been …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
2 min read
13-Jan-2026 17:49:34

7 Things Your School Site Team Shouldn’t Do Over the Festive Break (and What to Do Instead)

You know the feeling: the site’s finally quiet, the corridors aren’t full of coats, and you can almost hear the caretaki …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
4 min read
17-Dec-2025 17:15:27

Making Sense of Asset Management in Schools

Every school starts somewhere. Some start with colour-coded spreadsheets. Some start with chaos. Both are valid beginnin …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
2 min read
13-Nov-2025 10:37:20

Great Site Teams Are Worth Every Penny

Let’s talk about Trigger’s Broom. No, not a new cleaning product — the legend.

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
2 min read
13-Nov-2025 09:58:29

Are You Ready for the Autumn Audit?

When you read the title, you probably thought Ofsted, didn’t you? Nope—that was my other article. There’s another kind o …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
2 min read
02-Oct-2025 11:30:31

Centralised, Decentralised, or Hybrid? How MATs Are Managing Estates and Compliance

I speak to a number of multi-academy trusts in my role, and I’m always fascinated when I encounter one that’s fully cent …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
4 min read
24-Sep-2025 13:01:58

‘Outstanding’ Doesn’t Happen by Accident

I was doing an on-site demo recently, and in the chat afterwards we ended up talking about the Ofsted changes. One of th …

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Richard Melis
by Richard Melis Richard Melis
3 min read
12-Sep-2025 16:16:31