"Design for fire safety in schools" will help school designers and fire safety officers take the right steps to ensure new school buildings give staff and pupils the highest level of protection.

Schools Minister Jim Knight said there is now a presumption that new schools, built under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, will include sprinklers in the vast majority of cases. BSF is the largest school building programme in 50 years and will involve every primary and secondary school in the country being refurbished or rebuilt.

The guide includes:

* New design standards for fire safety in schools - these will apply to both new builds and refurbishment projects;
* The policy to install sprinkler systems in new schools; and from this year all new school designs will have to include sprinkler systems unless they demonstrate there is a very low fire risk;