School and college refurbishment, extensions and new teaching space across Oxford. Summer works are a speciality.
Education
The Lynch Brother Group is a school refurbishment contractor for Oxford and Oxfordshire. We renew classrooms and halls under fit out and refurbishment, add extensions and new teaching blocks, and keep a school open with repairs and redecoration. We work for primary and secondary schools, academy trusts, independent schools, further education colleges and the Oxford colleges, with the noisy work in the holidays. Tell us when the rooms must be back. We will survey them, then price them.
Classrooms, corridors, halls and staff rooms renewed under fit out and refurbishment: new floors, ceilings, lighting and finishes, walls moved to the architect's new room plan, the accessible washrooms and SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) rooms a school needs, and every room handed back clean for the first day of term.
A new classroom block, a hall or a science block on a working site, built as new build construction: the site fenced off from the playground, the noisy work in the holidays, and one site team from the groundworks to the last coat of paint.
The rooms that fail a school first: washrooms, kitchens and changing rooms stripped back, drainage and ventilation renewed, and the wet-room finishes laid by our own tiling and decorating team, in one holiday where the plan allows.
A block, a boarding house or a whole school repainted in the summer break by our own decorators, with the furniture moves, the protection and the drying time planned into the six weeks.
Roof and loft insulation, new glazing, and external wall insulation and render as retrofit and decarbonisation; roofs, gutters, windows and doors put right as fabric repairs under planned maintenance, so the building is warmer and cheaper to run when the pupils come back.
Staircases, common rooms, libraries and dining halls in the Oxford colleges, refurbished between terms inside estates with their own rules, as main contractor for the college's estates team. Student rooms sit under student accommodation.
Redecoration cycles, repairs and the small works a bursar or a site manager needs done, under planned maintenance, each one booked for the holiday or the weekend that suits the school.
A state school gives its contractor about thirteen weeks a year, six of them in one block; independent schools and colleges set their own calendars. We plan every job backwards from the first day of term. Strip out, noisy work and anything that closes a room go into the holidays. Quiet work runs in term time behind hoardings (solid site fencing) with its own access.
A school is never empty for long. Our site is fenced and locked, with its own entrance away from the school gates, and deliveries timed away from drop-off and pick-up. Anyone who works for us in term time holds an enhanced DBS check or is supervised, as the school's safeguarding policy requires, and everyone signs in. The site team meets the head or the bursar before we start and keeps the school's rules until we hand back.
The date cannot move, so the whole job is planned to one programme from the survey onwards. Structure, screed and decoration are the group's own trades. When a block must open on a Monday, the people we re-sequence are our own, not another firm's, and the head has one number to ring when something changes.
Three kinds of school job come to us. A head or a bursar has a building that has fallen behind: tired classrooms, a washroom block past repair, a roof that leaks, and one summer to put it right. An academy trust has outgrown its rooms and needs an extension or a new block on a site that stays open. Or an Oxford college has a staircase or a hall to refurbish between terms, in a listed building where students are living.
Whichever form it takes, one site team runs the job to one programme, and structure, screed and decoration are done by people the group employs. Heating, lighting, power and ventilation are renewed on the same programme and tested before the rooms go back. When the survey finds more than the drawings showed, which an old school building can, the same team prices it and fits it into the programme.
We work in the city's schools, in the villages and market towns around it, and inside the Oxford colleges, where the estates team's permits and the term calendar fix our hours.
The work need not stop at handover. Under planned maintenance the redecoration runs on a cycle and the repairs are booked for the holidays. For the method behind a refurbishment, read fit out and refurbishment; for a new teaching block, a hall or a boarding house, read new build construction.
Science & Laboratories
Lab fit out and refurbishment
Workspace & Offices
Cat A, Cat B and full building refurbishment
Retail
Shopfitting and fit outs that open on time
Hospitality
Refurbishments designed around trading hours
Education
Schools and colleges; summer works a speciality
Student Accommodation
Build and refurb, timed to the academic year
Residential Development
Multi-plot schemes, groundworks to handover
Heritage & Listed
Conservation-grade work on period buildings
How a school refurbishment runs
Every school is priced from its own survey. Ask us for yours.
Main Contracting
Main contractor and design and build partner
New Build Construction
Offices, labs, education and residential development
Fit Out & Refurbishment
Cat A, Cat B and full refurbishment
Dilapidations
Strip out, repairs and making good, for tenants and landlords
Retrofit & Decarbonisation
External wall insulation, render systems and energy upgrades
Screed, Render & Insulation
Liquid screed, spray rendering and external wall insulation
Decorating & Finishes
High-end decorating and tiling — the final finish
Property Management & Maintenance
Planned maintenance for landlords and businesses
From the site office
Yes. Summer works are the sector's rhythm and ours. The six-week break takes a block of classrooms, a washroom refurbishment, a roof or a whole-school redecoration, if the survey and the drawings are done by Easter and the orders placed by half term. The strip out starts the day after the pupils leave, and the rooms come back cleaned, tested and ready for the furniture. Larger jobs are split across the summer, Christmas and Easter breaks.
Yes, with the site kept apart from the school day. Term-time work runs behind hoardings, and the noisy and dusty work waits for the holidays or the hours you set. Our people are DBS-checked or supervised, as your safeguarding policy sets out, and never work alone near pupils. We keep the fire alarm and the escape routes working, and agree any shutdown with the site manager first.
We price from the drawings and a survey, room by room, so you can fit the scope to the budget. The rooms, the fabric, the heating and electrics, the finishes and the holiday the work must fit all move the price. Many academy trusts fund this work through the Department for Education's Condition Improvement Fund (CIF); we price the works for the bid and build to the funded scope. Our cost guide explains what sits behind a per-square-foot figure.
Yes. New teaching blocks, halls, science blocks and boarding accommodation are built as new build construction on a site that stays open. The site is fenced and locked, with a separate gate. The groundworks and the other noisy work go into the holidays, and the work inside the new block carries on in term time. The same trades that refurbish a school build the extension, so one site team runs both when a project has both.
Yes. A college sets its own conditions. Its estates team issues the permits and the hours. Students are in residence on the quad, so noise and deliveries are booked with the porters' lodge. Many of the buildings are listed, so the works go through the council's conservation officer and follow the heritage and listed building rules. The term calendar fixes when a staircase or a hall can close, so we refurbish and redecorate between terms.
It depends on the survey. A classroom refurbishment renews the floors, ceilings, lighting, decoration and the fittings the room needs. A whole-school refurbishment reaches into the fabric: the roof, the windows, the heating and ventilation, the washrooms and kitchens, the corridors and halls, and the external walls and insulation that decide the heating bill. A school can take it in phases, a block each holiday, and one contractor who plans the phases keeps the school open throughout.
Something else on your mind? Ask us directly.
Planning something serious — commercial, residential or a property portfolio that needs looking after? Send the outline and we'll take it from there.
