As part of Building Schools for the Future, the student voice is being integrated into the process of school design. With help from the Sorrell Foundation, teams of students from around the country are being shown how to express their thoughts and ideas on the issues suffered by existing school designs, innovative ways of making changes, and how to work with the architects that will be able to make those ideas a reality.
The foundation intends to help address the balance, giving children a voice to their ideas that can be heard in the adult world. Until 2010 it will be working with students and Building Schools for the Future in the hope that children's words will have an impact on tomorrow's schools.
Sir John Sorrell, co-founder of the foundation, says the institution is trying to make the pupil's voice heard as early on in the design process as possible. As to why involve children in school design, he says: "This isn't rocket science. It's obvious you should ask the consumers what they want; if consumers anywhere else are asked what they want and then don't get given it, they don't buy it. Children really know what the situation is."
Sorrell explains what makes the foundation work: "We turn the system on its head. All the time at school young people are being told what to do and being instructed. Here, they are the clients, they're not under a shadow of being marked and judged and evaluated. If you give children that kind of respect, they reward you with a brilliant brief."
Harry Coster and Leanne George are both on the client team for the Robert Clack school in Dagenham, Essex. Leanne explains what participating in the scheme means to her: "It's a really good experience. We're learning a lot from it. We get a sense of achievement, and we get to help children younger than us. When we're older we can come back and say, 'we made this!'."
Harry comments on his team's visits to the Sorrell Foundation: "We went to the foundation and they wanted to know what was wrong with our school. We knew some things at our school were wrong, but we didn't know how to fix them. But by going on visits, listening to other people and talking to architects, we came up with new ideas and found out what was possible."
Robert Clack school's team decided the main problems for the school were the toilets, the hallways, and the location of the classrooms. On the classrooms, Harry says there are no centralised departments, with classrooms for the same subjects dotted around the school. After researching the problem, the team decided to suggest giving departments their own identity with colour and decorations, and grouping subjects on one area. Inspired by trips to London, the team also decided to use guides based on the tube map for an easily navigable way of getting around the school.
Insight into architecture
The scheme has opened Harry's eyes to new areas. He says he would quite like to become an architect now he has had an insight into the job. Harry says of how the students were able to interact with architects: "I think we're definitely being taken seriously. The architects themselves are still learning [how to design schools], so we're helping them to build the school — and how to build schools — and they are helping us by showing us what's possible."
Working with architects also made a big impression on Lilly Abbott from the De La Salle school team, in Basildon, Essex. Her team was inspired by the domes of London that they observed on their trips to Somerset House. They decided to ask for a dome that would replace the whole school roof, to let in natural light and save money on electricity. However, using a model of the school, architects were able to show why that would not be possible, but that an alternative would work.
Lilly says: "The best work we did was looking at the structure of buildings and how they're designed. We had meetings at school and architects came in. They showed us pictures and an architect's model of the school that we had to look at to get an idea of what works. We were looking at making glass domes for the school roof, but the architects showed us on their model of the school that we could have a dome that covered part of the school instead, with a place to sit at a high level."
Cafeteria redesign
Krystal Quagraine, a 16-year-old at Barking Abbey school in Barking, says students at her school have decided the cafeteria is in need of help. Currently, queues are long and there is a lack of seating. Krystal says that for kids at the back of the food queues, there is often little time to eat before heading back to class. The proposal the team have come up with, alongside architects, is to make the cafeteria bigger, to split it into hot and cold food sections so students can move through faster, to make an outdoor seating area for summer, and to let more natural light in to increase the sense of space.
Elvera George-Ballo, mother of Leanne, says that through interacting with professional adults over the past few months, her daughter is now more confident in showing what she wants. She says: "Leanne is becoming very business-orientated. She's at the stage now where she feels she is more in control of her learning; she knows what she wants and she's aiming to achieve it. She's actually quite shy, but if she comes up with an idea and it's acted upon, she is motivated and confident, and we can see that coming through."
