Cladding Coatings has recently completed a project at Dukeries Academy in Nottinghamshire for the Academy Transformation Trust. Our project coincides with a re-brand for the secondary school which is situated in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire.

We first met Dukeries Academy at the Education Estates exhibition in November last year which we exhibited at with great success.

The Dukeries Academy is a secondary school, community college and leisure centre and offers education for students aged 11–19 and adults as a specialist technology college. The complex opened originally in September 1964 as, with Kirkby in Ashfield Comprehensive School, one of the first Nottinghamshire County Comprehensives. The Academy celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014 and became an academy on 1 January 2013, renamed The Dukeries Academy.

The Dukeries offers a farm unit, a swimming pool, a gym, a theatre, horse riding, old peoples centre, a nursery, on-site counselling, a construction block, an astro-turf pitch, a youth club and a fire service training centre.

On inspection, it was clear that the colour scheme was outdated, the woodwork required repainting and plastic panelling had faded. There were various schemes used over the 10 different buildings so the client wanted to unify all units and bring them in line and up to date.

The Cladding Coatings team have been working with the Academy to help them choose a colour scheme for the buildings exterior which complements the re-branding of the Academy which is also happening at the same time. The team were mindful that the building should reflect the whole image of the school and also portray the brand colours to give a consistent and professional impression to students, teachers and visitors to the school.

Many of our projects involve matching to an existing brand, so an opportunity to help develop a brand and new image was exciting for the team. The first step was to provide the Academy Board with a selection of Digital Building Images to show them how the buildings will look and help them decide whether the initial ideas will work together as they imagined. This took the form of digital images giving a lifelike view of what the buildings will look like when completed.

From these digital images the team narrowed down their possible options to a shortlist of three colours. The next step was for the Cladding Coatings team to attend site and test the shortlisted paint colours on the panels.

This process demonstrates how our team works closely with our clients to guide and support them through the process giving advice on paint systems that will be suitable to their building but also work with the company branding.

Once the colour scheme was chosen the preparation work on site involved cleaning and de-greasing the windows, high pressure washing of all surfaces using specialist detergents and preparing and painting various substrates including metal, wood, plastic panels, pre-finished powder coating aluminium, pebble dash and masonry: a full spectrum of exterior finishes.

The coating systems used included Rust-o-leum high performance paint systems. Murfil masonry system was applied to pebble dash and masonry which, is high performance and suitable for exterior environments. Alkathane 7500 was used on metal substrates, in a satin finish both to improve protection and appearance.

Due to the project being a college and therefore housing a number of young people, DBS checks and all health and safety documentation were presented to the client prior to commencement. The nature of the project also presented other obstacles due to the number of different buildings and high level of footfall and activity on the site.

As Cladding Coatings are highly experienced and professional, we were able to overcome all the issues presented to us and have full filled the requirements of the client. The finished result looks excellent and all parties involved are pleased with the work carried out.

If you missed us at Education Estates, we will be exhibiting this year on stand F23 at Manchester Central, 18-19th November.