There are also a number of new elements in this changing schools system that require different solutions: new providers – from the UK and abroad who will run and manage schools; new teachers – in the form of the recent graduates of the TeachFirst programme and experienced leaders looking for new challenges; new roles and responsibilities – for parents, teachers and charitable groups running Free Schools; and new systems – with less local authority control, fewer restrictions on curriculum and direct accountability to the Minister.In this changing climate, it is vital that the lessons of the past 20 years of education policy, thinking about schools and their communities and designing school environments are not forgotten when delivering these schools. To achieve this, Academy providers, Free school groups and other organisations in the sector need impartial and independent advice from a trusted source.

That is why we are launching a new Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service to help support free schools groups, academy sponsors and providers, local authorities and the public and private sector. Key areas of the service include:
-          Design Review and Building advice
-          Best practice visits and study tours in the UK and abroad
-          Strategic review and policy development
-          Student, staff and community engagement
-          Future policy scanning and research
-          Post occupancy evaluation and lessons learned reports
-          Capital Leadership Development programme

We have established ourselves as the leading voice and national experts on school design and construction and linking the built environment with school improvement. The AFA service will allow us to continue to develop policy, services and resources for this vitally important area of public policy.

Next generation schools – whether academies or free schools – must have high impact for teachers and pupils. Value for money should encourage commonsense in the design and delivery of schools and ensure such necessities as good light, acoustics and decent furniture. Lower costs should not mean poorer thinking about the nation’s schools.

Related posts:

1. Free schools – connecting the dots
2. New government: long signalled, swift action
3. Kunskapsskolan – new dynamics in teaching and learning?

BCSE School Design Awards 2010

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Pic: Click for credit

Over the next few weeks, we’re hoping to use The Centre for School Design site to build a conversation between people who work in local government and a handful of expert guest-bloggers before we finalise our own response to this review.

One of the key questions for us is this: Are other countries building things cheaper and better than us? When Michael Gove observed that Hong Kong International Airport had gone from soup-to-nuts in less time than it took some BSF rebuilding projects, he surely had a point about the waste, delays and ineffectual procurement methods that were used?

Looking at the terms of reference (MS Word Doc), we’d be very interested to see how procurement, in particular, is reviewed. We were only ever able to get half-answers from Partnership for Schools on why this process needed so many inflexible rules and gatekeepers. We’d also be interested to find out why so few people were prepared to speak up in the face of such obvious delay and poor management.Was it the case that those who had a birds eye view of the problem were also utterly dependent upon Partnerships For Schools for the ongoing success of their project? Is it possible to manage a scheme such as this in a transparent and accountable way when a QUANGO of any description is in a monopolistic position?

A review such as this appears to take all bets off the table – and this can only be a good thing. Can we bring these projects closer to local management? In preparing the ground for Free Schools, the bigger prize, surely, is that the processes needed to refurbish a school will need to be easier to apply.

How far did the sheer complexity of processes serve to effectively centralise decisions? Do complex benchmarking schemes need to be replaced by much more useable standards that everyone can understand – standards that define what a decent school is? Indeed, is this one of the great opportunities offered by the concept of the post bureaucratic age?

We hope to hear your views here in the comments section, in our LinkedIn forum and at a number of events that we’re organising to help focus everyone’s thinking in response to this review.

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Our most recent survey of over 500 teachers shows that school environments have a positive impact on pupil behaviour, teachers ability to teach effectively in the classroom and their well being. It follows a similar landmark survey done in 2008 ‘Just another brick in the wall’ which showed the need for school capital programmes to involve teachers and create more flexible environments.

More than half of teachers who responded to our 2010 School Environments Survey felt that their school building was not supporting their “ability to teach effectively by providing an environment that has a positive influence on behaviour.”

Results of the 2010 survey conducted by the BCSE, Teacher Support Network and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) showed that teachers overwhelmingly agreed (95.8%) that the school environment had an influence on pupil behaviour, with 52.1% believing that their surroundings had a negative effect.

As part of the survey, teachers sent in photos of their existing school environments including staffrooms and working spaces

Among teachers’ criticisms were lack of space for students to “relax”, lack of “exciting, flexible and appropriately sized classrooms for students”.  One teacher said “we currently have 250 more students in our school than we were designed to accommodate”.   There was also significant concern for “good quality toilets” causing one teacher to comment “students are very vocal about inadequate toilet facilities, which makes them feel unrespected.”

Clearly the survey shows school environments matter.   Money invested in school buildings is an investment in teachers and children, not a wasted luxury.  We need professional environments which support our teachers to do their jobs.

ATL general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted, said:  “Teachers work incredibly hard to give their pupils a good education regardless of the physical environment, but it is much harder for children to concentrate if the classroom is too hot or cold or they can’t hear properly.  We can’t stress enough that for teachers and children to teach and learn in an effective manner, school buildings need to be safe, clean, and inspiring.”

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1. Support for the school environments charter
2. Behaviour theory and education – the nudge factor
3. School capital investment – getting our house in order

But what has been missing is how these relate to each other.

For the last few years the BCSE have run study tours to Sweden and had conversations with architect, Kenneth Gardestad, from Kunskappskolan about the possibilities of the power of the old informing the new. An old submarine factory as a school? An old light bulb factory? These are successful industrial production spaces that have been transformed into learning spaces.But the reason these spaces work as schools is because the curriculum is perfectly matched to the spaces available. It really isn’t corridors and chicken crates, it’s thinking about children and their teachers with a new respect. And when you are doing this you can’t always get it on the cheap.

Free schools and the spaces they will occupy are not just new ‘old’ schools. Often the sites being looked at for Free Schools are restricted and limited by previous use. Adaptive reuse does demand challenging the ways you do things; you can’t do things the way you’ve always done them. That means using spaces for teaching and learning in different ways. Social spaces become much more of a learning space and private study space becomes much more important. Colour needs to be used to uplift and stimulate and be used in much more mature ways than the cartoon colours that adults think young people like.  Importantly we must ask the teachers ‘How do you work best and where?’

It also means looking at what happens on school sites and the implications on management and safety. Whether it is office reuse, high street or out-of-town retail space, we MUST aim for decent environments. They don’t need to be grandiose but they do need to work for a new generation of teachers and learners. We expect our office space to work with us so why do we deny our learners the same opportunity? Good light, proper air, acoustics with ease, furniture that doesn’t hurt your back and technologies you can fit and forget.

Be practical when choosing the building for a Free School. Ask yourself this question: Can this building serve the needs of teachers and young people? And don’t forget some buildings are as particular as people.

In all the furore of the debate its important to remember: Decent school environments matter

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… and you can watch the full parliamentary statement with the debate that followed in full here :

In summary, 715 school revamps already signed up to the scheme will not now go ahead, with a further 123 academy schemes to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

A good deal more detail can be found following the links on this page. He also argued that a good deal of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme was “massively flawed” and “over-bureaucratic”.

We’ve been busy in the media offering a commentary on this – you can fast-forward to 2 hours 12 minutes into the Radio Five Live breakfast show here on the iPlayer to hear my five-minute interview. Broadly, we’ve been saying that the consequences of cutting the school building programme are significant – we know decent school environments have an impact on pupil attainment, behaviour and wellbeing as well as teacher recruitment and retention.

We’re hoping that the announced review will come up with significant and creative ideas to keep the renewal of our school buildings on track – whether through refurbishment, or refreshing current buildings, or re-using other buildings.

We’re totally in agreement with Michael Gove about the way that waste and bureaucracy have been a real drag on the school building programme – we must find new ways of doing things that are smarter, and more efficient.

But, at the same time, most of all we have to keep our eyes on the prize, and remember that investment in school buildings is also an investment in teachers. Good school buildings deliver results for children, teachers, parents and communities, and help get our children ready for the challenges of adulthood.

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2. Wales 21st Century Schools programme
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National School Environments Week (18 – 25 June) started with an eclectic mix of events, seminars and networking opportunities – from a fantastic House of Commons launch event with speakers including the outgoing chair of the education select committee Barry Sheerman MP and Micael Sammon. To a seminar on the ‘Architecture of the Mind’ – looking at design issues for special educational needs, health and well being and mental health with great inputs from Georgia Burt and Martha McSweeney from Nightingale Associates - the latter who had worked on projects as diverse as secure units in Northern Ireland and Broadmoor!  We also ran a UK-Dutch school design symposium at the Dutch Embassy which was a sprint like event through innovative school design ideas from the Netherlands from 6 leading architect firms – more on that to follow.

Whilst we were still awaiting news on what budgetary cuts we could expect from the new government (our response to the emegency budget is here) we turned our attention to school refurbishment. On the 21^st June, we teamed up with Scott Brownrigg and Davis Langdon to publish our ‘Rethinking Schools Capital Investment – the New 3Rs? Refresh, Refurb, Reuse?’ report in full on the Centre for School Design website.

We chose this moment to focus on a stunning example of school refurbishment – Ifield School in Gravesend – a great illustration of how a special school can be updated and refreshed through thoughtful and inclusive design. We also featured a number of other special schools as well earlier in the month, creating a gallery of great design examples.

The ‘New 3Rs’ launch event itself drew out a few interesting lessons from history. In particular, Michael Oliff from Scott Brownrigg described the genesis of education buildings from Victorian times to the present and identified trends that could show us the way forward, in a time where budgets are restricted.

“Board schools showed an economy of design matched with high value placed on natural light and a mixture of home, instruction and project spaces, which mirror current day designs. In the 1920s, there was a movement towards ‘Open air’ schools which emphasised the outdoor environment as a key element to teaching and learning, at little cost, and in post war Britain modular and off site solutions were found to build and upgrade schools en masse to deliver system wide education change and cater for an age of austerity.”

Finally we looked at a great example of sustainability in schools – Bowbridge Primary School in Notts and reviewed the award-winning approach to whole-school technology at Forest Hill School in London.

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"If you're only in this business to put up buildings, you're in the wrong business."

We knew he was worth hearing – we wouldn’t have asked him to speak otherwise – but if we’d anticipated just how powerful his message was going to be … well, you’d be watching a YouTube of it instead of getting a few remembered quotes from me.

It was a tour de force that resulted in ‘our host for the evening – Kim Catcheside – grabbing the microphone and giving us a very good rendition of ‘Sweet Chariot’!

Drawing on his experience growing up in South London before founding the Oasis Trust, Steve made the point that teachers often say ‘have a good weekend’ to some of the kids they work with in the knowledge that the weekend isn’t as good or inspiring as the time that they spend in a school that is designed and managed by committed people.

He quoted Martin Luther King saying “you only know you’re truly alive when you know what you’re prepared to die for” – while picking a bone with the great man for his use of the word ‘dream’ where ‘vision’ would be a better alternative.

There’s more, and we’ll have to see if we can get Steve to reprise his performance in front of a camera some time.

And so to the awards. They are now in their third year, and they’re here to identify and reward excellence in the UK school design and construction sector. What stood out this evening was the quality of submissions across 15 categories, demonstrating the innovation and outstanding work being delivered across the public and private sector.

The judges have chosen a range of projects, individuals and teams to recognise their contribution to school design in the last year. In particular, the Big School Makeover Award for the Best Remodelled School had some fantastic projects and will be an area of great interest in the coming years.

The entries this year are a welcome opportunity to celebrate the best of Britain’s schools. In an ‘age of austerity’ the temptation may be to retreat into our shells, but this year, more than any other, we need to celebrate the world leading work of our schools, local authorities, architects, contractors, suppliers and organisations across the sector.

The strong shortlist and exciting list of winners shown in this booklet show that we have much to be proud of.

We hope that you will find these awards inspiring and both in the diversity of projects it contains and in the level of thinking that has gone into each school. We know that there are many more examples of great practice across the UK and we look forward to an even larger entry next year.

Our thanks go to the panels who judged this year’s awards and in particular to Gareth Long who chaired the entire process. We also thank our sponsors without whom the Awards would not be possible.

Inspiring Design: Schools
Clapham Manor Primary School
Forest Way School
The Pears National Centre for Autism Education

Inspiring Design:  Academy
The City Academy

School Contractor of the Year
Willmott Dixon

School Architect of the Year – The Jonathan Ibikunle Award
Studio E Architects

Local Authority of the Year
Manchester City Council

Furniture, Fittings and Equipment (FF+ E) Supplier of the Year
ISIS

Sustainable School of the Year
St Luke’s CE Primary School

Best School Extension, Refurbishment or Remodel  – The Big School Makeover Award
Coleridge Primary School

Best School Extension, Refurbishment or Remodel  – The Big School Makeover Award
Elm Court School

Best Use of Learning Technology
RM

Best Outdoor Learning Environment
Park Campus PRU

Best Sport and Play Environment
Kirkby Sports College for Learning

Best Healthy Learning Environment
Acland Burghley School

Innovation in Student Engagement – The School Works Award
Essex County Council

Inspirational School Leader
Vonn Smith,  John Perryn School

Judges Award
Clapham Manor School and dRMM Architects

Fellowship of the British Council for School Environments
Paul Morrell, OBE

We’ll be returning to a lot of these winners – along with a few of the ‘highly commended’ runners up over the coming weeks and months – please stay tuned!

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I often hold Knowsley’s approach up as one of the best examples of a local authority responding directly to the nature of learning in the 21st century.

In a number of their BSF projects, they’ve shown a desire to prepare their schools for personalised learning while also recognising the needs of the whole child, adopting a ‘school within a school’ approach through the introduction of homebases.

Their Centres for Learning are also promoting healthier, happier and engaged children. One of the winners of the 2009 ‘Inspiring Design’ awards – Christ the King – has enhanced the quality of the learning environment for its users with the following features:

An atrium at the heart of the Centre for Learning (CfL), offering a large double height open space which can be adapted for a variety of learning, cultural and social use while also creating a magnificent welcoming light entrance.

Locally young people requested that large centres are divided into home/family groupings with Homebases. These incorporate a variety of spaces including learning studios and open breakout areas based around a ‘village square’. This accommodates a range of different learning styles.

Learning spaces are more flexible and longer opening hours allow the community to use the centre for educational, cultural and leisure use, so spaces are multifunctional to adapt to their needs.

The Learning Resource Area has replaced the traditional library and offers increased opportunities for more interactive learning through the provision of wireless technologies, IT banks and library resources.

External Terrace & Winter Garden provide opportunities for ‘indoor outdoor learning’ with a series of external terraces attached to each homebase. This has included an internal winter garden – a covered yet permeable space which enables pupils to explore sustainability and environmental learning.

A series of ‘warehouses’ deliver specialist subjects such as science, technology and the Arts.

The CfL is WiFi enabled and Knowsley has developed a virtual personalised learning environment for every student.

I recall that, when we were looking at this project during our deliberations for the 2009 awards, the Judges were impressed by Knowsley’s ability to engage a wide range of stakeholders in the development of Christ the King Centre for Learning.

This is an exciting new building that provides an imaginative and flexible range of general and specialist learning spaces designed with the 21st Century curriculum at its heart. It also provides lots of ideas that existing schools can tune into.

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2. Reshaping our learning landscape
3. Kunskapsskolan – new dynamics in teaching and learning?

Open air schools

Yesterday’s launch event of our new resource ‘The New 3Rs’ threw up some really interesting observations from the presenters about the new landscape we are working within – and some radical options for the future of schools and school design.

Interestingly many of these had their roots in the history of schooling and identify a need to learn the lessons of the past to be able to make sense of the present more challenging climate and to succeed in the future. Presentations from the event are available here and I’ve summarised the key discussions below.

Ty Goddard, BCSE, started by describing the policy context of free schools, the drive for new academies and the next months as being turning points for the system and industry.  We must deliver more for less but ensure we don’t drive out the quality of the thinking that’s taken place over the past 5 years. Remodelling he suggested had been the Cinderella element of capital investment, whereas refresh and reuse had been given less profile than new build. Yet in the new era of public spending restrictions – the new 3Rs have the potential to be even more dynamic and create better value for money.

Michael Oliff from Scott Brownrigg described the genesis of education buildings from Victorian times to the present and identified trends that could show us the way forward, in a time where budgets are restricted. Board schools showed an economy of design matched with high value placed on natural light and a mixture of home, instruction and project spaces, which mirror current day designs. In the 1920s, there was a movement towards ‘Open air’ schools which emphasised the outdoor environment as a key element to teaching and learning, at little cost, and in post war Britain modular and off site solutions were found to build and upgrade schools en masse to deliver system wide education change and cater for an age of austerity. Sound familiar?

Paul Zucharelli from Davis Langdon continued the excellent debate with a bold statement– “we know as much as we can about costs but what about the ‘value’ of education? – how can you measure the value of carbon reduction and improving educational achievement and wellbeing and of community?’. He continued by describing the various cost models available and put the 3Rs on a continuum of change – remodelling could be likely to re-inforce the status quo in terms of teaching and learning, whereas refresh could change a school’s approach, albeit on a much smaller scale. Reuse he suggested was the most exciting option as it challenged the conventional wisdom about schooling and many participants at the seminar endorsed this with example of state schools, independent schools and higher education institutions using non conventional spaces.

Finally we heard from Bob Athroll from Willmott Dixon talking about the need to measure outcomes in any building project. In a changing climate, he said, we must focus on the specific needs and requirements of teachers and pupils – whether that be improved behaviour, better spaces for teaching and learning or a more secure site. He neatly summed up the advice he provides to schools by saying that the key for a successful school design is a 3 part question: We should all ask ‘how do you want teachers to teach, how will learners learn – and how will the building support that. In a time of great change, sometimes the most simple questions are the most powerful.

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