Mace Ltd. are gathering baseline information on several schools involved in the Hertfordshire Building Schools for the Future programme. As part of this programme, Albion Archaeology produced a desk-based assessment (2008) which identified the need for an assessment of the buildings at Barclay School. Its purpose is to characterise the nature, condition and development of the standing buildings and architectural setting of Barclay School and its campus. The Barclay School was built between 1947 and 1951. It was part of the large-scale post-war school building programme that had led to the development of pioneering techniques of prefabricated construction, in which Hertfordshire County Council played a leading role. Not only was Barclay School the first school to be built in Stevenage after the war, it was also the first co-educational school and represents an exemplar of the architectural and educational philosophy being developed and applied by the new educationalists at the time.