A school designed for children, from a child's perspective, is more likely to get kids into class on a regular basis than any other approach. Yet some fear that schools designed with the input of students may end up with pink uniforms, diamond-coated toilet seats and junk food in the cafeteria.
However, the children that have so far been shown how to communicate their thoughts and ideas for Building Schools for the Future have been pragmatic and sensible, as well as innovative and imaginative. Teachers are completely behind the scheme to make the student the client. Karla King, deputy head of year for year 10 at Barking Abbey school in Barking, says: "Students are more likely to come into school willingly if it's a school they like. Kids can tell you what's working and what isn't, and some of the things I've seen students come up with are things adults wouldn't have thought of."
Children should be involved because they are the client, agrees Paul Argent, social inclusion manager at the Robert Clack school in Dagenham, Essex. "They're the ones moving around, using the loos, sitting in the classrooms. They know what they want and children have a far more fertile imagination than adults; they just need to be switched on.
"The world has moved on. It's developed. Not all teachers know about the latest technology, but students do. These are public buildings being paid for by the state — us — and although these students don't yet pay taxes, they soon will, so they have a democratic right to have their say in building schools for the future."
Dr Michael Curnock, headteacher at De La Salle school in Basildon, Essex, says the project gives students a voice. "I don't think we can ever underestimate the value of children's opinions and values on school environments," says Curnock. "The children's perspectives are an eye-opener; they see the world differently to adults in the same environment. They took quite an imaginative route that I'm not sure an adult would have seen, such as making learning areas that aren't classrooms for the use of iPods and cinemascope teaching. It's been inspirational."
Argent says participating in Building Schools for the Future and working with the Sorrell Foundation, which aims to explore what young people want from design at school, has given him a fresh outlook. Over time, he claims, it is easy to become cynical, just ticking boxes. "You can forget there's a world outside school," he says. "But this project has enlivened me and given me a fresh perspective. We normally teach students about what goes on outside school, but on this project they are actually working in the outside world, being out there, on site, talking to people who aren't teachers. They're touching the real thing."
Argent says he has seen his students gain more responsibility, become more skilled in teamwork, and become confident in talking to adults who are not teachers. "Students from east London can feel very on the edge of things, but we wanted them to become confident in all these areas, especially speaking to professionals. This project has driven them forward, got them to develop new and existing skills, and shown them how to draw in as many students from the rest of the school as possible."
Going to work at Somerset House, where the Sorrell Foundation is based, was an experience for the students in itself, says Curnock. He says his group learned a lot about architecture by looking at the building, and more on their excursion to the South Bank. "It enabled them to appreciate what schools could be like, and opened their eyes to the potential impact they could have on environs for learning."
New experiences
Stephanie Ladd, geography teacher and pupil voice coordinator at Woodlands school in Basildon, Essex, is full of enthusiasm for the process at the Sorrell Foundation. She says students that participate get to experience a plethora of areas that they normally would not. As well as learning about design, architecture and working in teams, they also learn about presenting information, gaining self-confidence, and working with other adults and pupils. They can also find out about different careers that they might not otherwise have heard about or considered.
Learning is not limited to students, Ladd says. Through her visits to the Sorrell Foundation with her team of pupils, she says she got an understanding of design and architecture, and an indication of what will happen to the school. "I started thinking about what environment I want to be working in, what I want from a school as a teacher, seeing what the pupils want, and looking at whether there is a correlation between the two points of view; there turned out to be more similarities than differences in what the students wanted and what I thought of."
Ladd was impressed by how the pupils performed: "They really surprised me. They want to provide a good learning environment for future children. They want to have an influence over the school environment, making it better than the one they have now."
