The drive is on to ensure all schools are functional and modern, but can we be confident that the approaches taken now will still be applicable in years to come? Philip Watson offers some advice. Photographs by Alan McAtee, Buro Happold
Through its Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative the government has made its largest investment in education since Victorian times. There is no doubt that the majority of UK schools are in need of modernisation: most are more than 25 years old and many have been around for much longer.
Partnerships for Schools, the organisation tasked with making BSF a reality, says that the programme will see every state secondary school in England – around 3,500 in total – rebuilt or remodelled.
While there is a common desire in the teaching community to improve teaching practices, most find it difficult to visualise what this might look like in spatial terms. Educationalists are encouraged to embark on a transformational journey towards a more ‘personalised’ or ‘learner centred learning’ scenario, beginning to tailor learning to meet individual needs, but many just don’t know where to start.
One of our key roles as consultants is to help educationalists realise this vision, collaborating with teachers and giving them the tools to understand what they can achieve from a new approach to design.
Inspirational ethos
We try to get schools to think of internal social spaces where pupils can develop social skills and feel comfortable – and then make these places for learning too. At Atkins we ask teachers to rethink how the school could be organised to create this inspirational ethos. Our top 10 considerations are set out overleaf.
Here and overleaf we use the examples of three Atkins projects that have challenged the norm to create new learning environments where a variety of pedagogical approaches can be explored.
Making it happen
It is the joint responsibility of government, LEAs, designers and most importantly, the schools, to collaborate to ensure every school is given the chance to enable learning to grow and flourish over the years to come.
Atkins’ success in creating transformational education facilities has only manifested where teachers and local authorities have collaborated with us under a shared aspirational vision.
All parties need to have ownership of this vision and the belief that new schools have the potential to act as catalysts to really transform the education of our young people if we are to develop new schools fit for the 21st century.
Atkins top 10 considerations for a future-looking learning environment
- Consider working in mixed age groups in line with abilities
- Consider project-based learning where there are cross-subject collaborations and the organisational impact this might have, ie a range of different sized spaces to support individual, small and large group learning
- Consider the impact of ICT and how this might enable curriculum delivery across the whole school or even a school’s estate
- Consider organisation of form groups (mixed age or year groups) and the identity of this group as a ‘school within a school’
- Dedicate internal social spaces where pupils can socialise at break times
- Consider new pedagogical models of independent study and monitoring and how an ICT enabled learning platform can support this
- Think about moving teachers between lessons rather than the pupils to create less traffic, reduce misbehaviour and not waste time
- Embrace the role of the school as a community hub with access to encourage greater involvement of parents and carers in the life of the school
- Consider reducing the number of subject-specific teaching spaces to enable greater flexibility in future and reduce teacher ‘ownership’ of classrooms
- Consider the possibilities for learning and socialising outdoors and creating sheltered, intimate spaces to support this
Hassenbrook School i-Lab
The i-Lab at Hassenbrook School at Stanford-Le-Hope in Essex is a great example of how a small design budget can reap large rewards in extending the scope of a facility and providing an exceptional working environment for its users.
For this technology-focused school, Atkins created a custom-built ICT facility designed to provide dedicated space for techniques that focus on creative thinking. The i-Lab concept is based on experimental work completed by the Post Office and is aimed at fostering new ideas by setting up unusual synergies.
Creation of the i-Lab has provided a stimulating environment within the school for strategy meetings, creative problem solving, team building, presentations and customer focus groups. Pupils, staff and the local community all put the i-Lab to good use, and local businesses are able to book and use it as a conference facility, bringing additional revenue to the school.
The iLab concept has three key components:
- A dedicated space
The features which characterise it are privacy, multiple media for working, including whiteboard walls and technology to capture thoughts and ideas, and a distinctive layout and decor.
- Co-operative ways of working
The i-Lab is designed to encourage the contribution of all. This includes collaborative working tools such as electronic meetings software (for brainstorming, list building, information gathering, voting, organising, prioritising and consensus building etc) and the use of a variety of facilitation techniques to stimulate and capture this contribution. The tools also relieve groups of the need to stop and write things up as they go – both ideas and plans are captured in the process of working.
- Facilitation techniques
Facilitation techniques to stimulate open, creative thinking and this helps a group focus and come up with an outcome.
These three elements combine to generate a process which results in real planning and problem solving.
Hipperholme and Lightcliffe School – a creative space
Hipperholme and Lightcliffe School in Halifax wanted to refresh its facilities to provide both students and staff with a new environment to work and socialise in. Working to a limited budget, Atkins and the school decided to combine an area previously dedicated to learning with a broad circulation space, creating a large flexible learning and social space.
During timetabled lessons it is used by students and teachers for both directed learning and small group work. During break and lunchtimes, it offers casual dining and computers for access to the internet and becomes a lively venue for students to meet with friends, do homework and research school projects.
The interior design took the idea of surfing the net literally by using real surf boards to create tabletops. This gives the space a funky feel and it has since become the students’ favourite place in the new school.
Penistone Grammar Advanced Learning Centre – looking to the future
Layout at Penistone Grammar is designed to adapt to changing education policies
As part of a BSF project, Atkins worked closely with Penistone Grammar in Barnsley to provide a solution as relevant now as it will be in the future.
Atkins created several learning zones where classrooms are clustered around flexible break-out areas. Integrated IT, wireless connectivity, movable partitions and flexible furniture all enable the spaces to be used in a variety of ways, from traditional directed learning through to lead lessons to large groups and small group and individual learning opportunities.
The spaces are not only very flexible but also adaptable to changes in curriculum delivery in years to come. Over time the spaces can be altered to facilitate these different pedagogies, creating a true school for the future.
Source
Building Sustainable Design
Postscript
Philip Watson is head of education at Atkins
Original print headline: "Thinking ahead" (Building Services Journal, June 2008)
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