From the single teaching rooms of Victorian schools through to the prefabricated materials and costsaving, open plan schemes of the 1950s, school buildings have historically been developed in accordance with a misplaced emphasis on social and economic factors rather than educational theory.
The government's £45bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, which involves improving or rebuilding 3,500 secondary schools, aims to prove that good design and learning are compatible. Tim Byles, chief executive at Partnerships for Schools, the government agency responsible for delivering this £2bn-a-year capital investment programme, says: "Ultimately it is about people and the ways in which new environments bringing together a whole host of ingredients — physical environments, virtual learning environments, strong leadership and committed teaching teams, as well as engaged parents — can make a real difference to their life chances."
Teamwork
It is a view shared by headteacher Angela Armytage. When she found out her Sheffield technology college in South Yorkshire was to be replaced with a £20m building on the same site, she appointed an associate head for BSF and curriculum information. "This was to help us translate the vision for teaching and learning into bricks and mortar, by liaising with the design team, builders, staff, students and parents.
The vision includes the potential for personalised timetables, which will be made possible by learning areas with flexible walls, and easy access to ICT facilities.
Phase one of Yewlands technology college opened in September. Armytage believes that the new building will help her continue to raise attainment levels.
"Students have even gained one more hours' learning a day as a result of being in a better designed building instead of going up and down corridors," she says.
Armytage's experience of how school buildings can have a direct impact on students' achievement within them, is borne out by one of the first schools to be built under BSF, the Bristol Brunel academy in Bristol. The school has recently won a Riba [Royal Institute of British Architects] award, and independent research carried out by NFER [National Foundation for Educational Research] shows "the very positive impact that the new learning environment is having on students: increasing their sense of pride, enjoyment and safety on the one hand and reducing anti-social behaviours, such as bullying and graffiti, on the other," says Byles.
Design advice for BSF schools is given at an early stage by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe), the government's architecture watchdog. Cabe is also responsible for assessing every BSF design before it goes forward for planning permission. Its report, published in July, considered 40 proposed school designs — including 36 BSF proposals — and judged more than 80% of them as either "mediocre" or "not good enough". The findings prompted the government to announce in September that in future all new school designs would need to meet minimum design standards before getting the go-ahead. The new vetting system is due to be introduced by the end of the year.
Rachel Toms, the senior design review adviser at Cabe, says: "We aim to empower the local authority early on. Well-designed schools have a clear and simple organisation to the building. The main entrance should be visible, and once a student is inside the building it has to be a legible environment, meaning that students can find their way around easily."
Communal space
Toms makes the point that it is not just the internal layout which counts — the building's exterior sends out messages to the local community about the importance of education. "A school needs to have a proud, confident face that is visible on the street and has a good relationship with other buildings," she says.
For a designer like Keith Papa, architect director of Building Design Partnership, the starting point of a good school building is understanding the aspirations of the local education authority and school. His comments are significant because this September a joint report by the Teacher Support Network and the British Council for School Environments claimed that teachers and pupils were being denied the opportunity to influence the design of their school because of the "baffling" way in which the BSF programme is run.
Papa says: "We want to know what will get the students excited. Architects do a lot of listening." One of his overriding design principles is to include what he calls "social heart space", an easily accessed, open, communal area which he compares with a town square.
"Social heart space is one thing that makes the biggest difference," he says. "A school is a community of people and you have to build a framework around that and acknowledge that it is a place where children learn social interaction as well as lessons."
Papa, who is currently working on BSF schools in Islington, north London, says that there is now a stronger design relationship between school and university. "In school design we think about learning settings rather than rooms, just as universities respond to different learning needs, and offer lecture theatres, seminar rooms and tutorial rooms," he says.
Andrew Percival, social infrastructure director at Taylor Woodrow, which is working on a £320m BSF programme through the Sheffield Local Education Partnership (LEP), says that ICT is a major consideration for BSF projects. "It is driving the dynamics of education at the moment and we have to make sure that the building can cope."
Percival points out that how ICT is used affects the management of lighting and sunlight (the position of windows) and the choice of ergonomic furniture.
Tim Byles agrees: "ICT has immense potential to transform both teaching and learning, and is at the very heart of how we go about engaging the disengaged."
With roughly 10% of BSF funding allocated to ICT, it has to be an integral part of school environments, but it also has to be future-proof.
"New five-year ICT contracts with external suppliers linked to a managed service are seen as the way to keep pace with the vision and imagination of school leaders, who are insisting on a seamless integration of fixed and mobile technology throughout their buildings," adds Byles.
"This frees up schools to concentrate on their core business — raising standards and inspiring learners."
Weblinks:
Building Design Partenrship: bdp.com
Cabe: cabe.org.uk
PFS: partnershipsforschools.org.uk
Taylor Woodrow: taylorwoodrow.com
