School Spaces for Student Wellbeing and Learning: Insights from Research and Practice

300 Pages·2019·10.003 MB·English

by  Hilary Hughes, Jill Franz, Jill Willis

Hilary Hughes · Jill Franz · Jill Willis
Editors
School Spaces for
Student Wellbeing
and Learning
Insights from Research and Practice
School Spaces for Student Wellbeing and Learning
Hilary Hughes Jill Franz
(cid:129) (cid:129)
Jill Willis
Editors
School Spaces for Student
Wellbeing and Learning
Insights from Research and Practice
123
Editors
Hilary Hughes Jill Franz
Queensland University of Technology Queensland University of Technology
KelvinGrove, Brisbane, QLD,Australia KelvinGrove, Brisbane, QLD,Australia
Jill Willis
Queensland University of Technology
KelvinGrove, Brisbane, QLD,Australia
ISBN978-981-13-6091-6 ISBN978-981-13-6092-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6092-3
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018967741
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Foreword
Ifwemay,wewillbeginwithareflectiononprocessesofschooldesigninourown
setting.Thepurposeistoillustratetheimportanceoftheunderlyingassumptionsof
this book.
The relationship between design and practice has a contested history, with
suggestions that design alone can change behaviour locked in conflict with those
thatithaslittleornoimpact.Neitherargumenthasdevelopedasophisticatedmodel
oftherelationshipbetweenthem.Therehasbeenrecognitionofthecomplexnature
of the influences that are brought to bear on design and on the nature of the
knowledge that is needed for design to ‘work’:
Thestrugglestoagreeuponwhatcountsasdesignknowledgeanditsculturalidentitycan
therefore be perceived as affecting and being affected by a complex system involving
economy, production, social significance, consumption, use of objects, and so on
(Carvalho,Dong,&Maton2009,p.484).
What counts as acceptable design knowledge changes over time, sometimes very
rapidly. In England between 2003 and 2010, there was considerable government
interest and investment in designs that aimed to provide inspiring learning envi-
ronmentsandexceptionalcommunityassetsoveranextendedperiod.Theintention
wastoensurethat‘allyoungpeoplearebeingtaughtinbuildingsthatcanenhance
their learning and provide the facilities that they and their teachers need to reach
theirfullpotential’.Thedesignprocesswastoinvolve‘properconsultationwiththe
staff and pupils of the school and the wider community’ (DfES, 2002, p. 63) in
order that ‘authorities and schools will be able to make visionary changes and
enable teaching and learning to be transformed’ (DfES, 2003, p. 7).
The initiative involved the decentralisation offunds to local education partner-
ships that were required to build and improve secondary school buildings as well
co-ordinate and oversee the educational transformation and community regenera-
tion that was envisaged:
v
vi Foreword
Theaimisnotjusttoreplacecrumblingschoolswithnewones,buttotransformtheway
welearn.Thisrepresentsabreakwiththeoldwayofdoingthingsandshouldchangethe
wholeideaof‘school’,fromaphysicalplacewherechildrenaresimplytaughttoonewhere
a community of individuals can share learning experiences and activities (CABE,
2006,p.1).
AspirationsfortheoutcomesoftheprogrammeknownasBuildingSchoolsforthe
Future (BSF) were couched in terms of collaboration between schools, the devel-
opment of new forms of infrastructure, new models of school organisation, an
enhanced teaching force, new patterns of distributed leadership, personalised
approachestoteachingandlearninginvolvingsignificantandnoveluseofICTand
new forms of central governance. These new schools were spoken of as ‘new
cathedralsoflearning’thatweretobedesignedthroughhighlevelsofconsultation
withkeyinterest groupsincludingparentsandchildren.Thedesignprocesswasto
involve ‘proper consultation with the staff and pupils of the school and the wider
community’ (DfES, 2002, p. 63) in order that ‘authorities and schools will be able
to make visionary changes and enable teaching and learning to be transformed’
(DfES, 2003, p. 7).
Theterm‘personalisation’wasacommonfeatureofmanypolicydocumentsand
althoughitwaslinkedtoamyriadofmeanings,itgenerallybecameassociatedwith
shiftsinmodesofcontroloverlearningwithstudentstakingmoreresponsibilityfor
the selection, sequencing and pacing of their work in school. The personalised
approach was to be made feasible through access to new technologies and the
availability of a mixed economy of open and flexible spaces. The argument pro-
moted in favour of this significant investment was couched in terms of transfor-
mation oflearningandteaching along with enhanced participation andcommunity
involvement and engagement. Sustainability was a major consideration especially
with respect to energy usage.
Considerable emphasis was also placed on the need for new approaches to
school leadership:
OurdeterminationistoensurethateveryHeadisabletodomorethanrunastableschool.
Transformationrequiresleadershipwhich:canframeaclearvisionthatengagestheschool
community;canmotivateandinspire;pursueschangeinaconsistentanddisciplinedway;
and understands and leads the professional business of teaching. To achieve their full
potential,teachersneedtoworkinaschoolthatiscreative,enablingandflexible.Andthe
biggest influence is the Head. … Heads must be free to remodel school staffing, the
organisationoftheschoolday,schoolweekandschoolyearandbeimaginativeintheuse
ofschoolspace–openingupopportunitiesforlearninginthecommunity,engagingwith
businessanddevelopingvocationalstudies(DfES,2002,p.26).
However,asKraftl(2012)pointsout,thereissomedoubtastowhetherthisradical
vision of restructuring was realised in the realities of practice in schools and
communities:
BSFconnectedwiththepromiseofthreefurtherdiscourses:school(children),community
and architectural practice. It anticipated that new school buildings would instil transfor-
mativechange–modernisingEnglishschooling,combatingsocialexclusionandleavingan
Foreword vii
architectural ‘legacy’. However, it is argued that BSF constituted an allegorical utopia:
whilst suggesting a ‘radical’ vision for schooling and society, its ultimate effect was to
preserveaconventional(neo-liberal)modelofschooling(Kraftl,2012,p.847).
More recently, the subject of design quality in schools has come to the fore with
government pronouncements on the wastage of money on architectural fees and
whathasbeenreferredtoasover-indulgentdesignwithintheBSFprogramme.The
architectural profession has responded that they had been asked to produce higher
qualityenvironmentsparticularlyintermsoftheacousticenvironment,thequalityof
daylightingandhigherqualityventilation,theprovisionofICTandthereductionin
energycosts.Somebuildingsmayproveextremelygoodvalueformoneyinterms
of their impact onthe educational achievements oftheirpupils;othersmay not.
Thepolicyenvironmentinwhichtheschoolswestudiedwerelocatedwasonein
whichcapitalinvestmentwasmadeinordertosecureradicalchangeinthepractices
of schooling. Teaching, learning, management and community participation and
engagementweretobetransformedasnewschoolsweredesignedandbuilttomeet
theenvisagedneedsofthetwenty-firstcentury.Morerecently,policyontheroleof
design in rebuilding the schools estate in England has been through another major
change as attempts are made to achieve good value and efficiency in times of
austerity. In 2010, the Building Schools for the Future programme was scrapped.
The Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) was established in 2011 and
intended to reduce school building costs by approximately a third in comparison
with those incurred during BSF. Project time has also been reduced from 24–36
months to 12 months in order to drive efficiency. This involves limiting consul-
tation with school communities and multiple stakeholders to an initial 6-week
period. So-called Control Options were produced in order to demonstrate how a
very limited number of Baseline Designs should be applied in practice:
Goodqualityeducationdoesnotnecessarilyneedsparkling,architect-designedbuildings…
Throughout its life [BSF] has been characterised by massive overspends, tragic delays,
botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy (Gove, as cited in Kraftl, 2012,
p.866).
Sometimeago,Earthman(2004)concludedthatwhileinadequateschoolbuildings
cause health problems and lower student morale, and contribute to poor student
performance, he was not convinced that school buildings need necessarily be any
more than adequate, although the notion of adequacy fails to find a satisfactory
definition. A recent review conducted by OECD (2013) sought to identify how
‘investments in the physical learning environment’—that is ‘the physical spaces
(including formal and informal spaces) in which learners, teachers, content,
equipment and technologies interact’—can translate into improved cognitive and
non-cognitiveoutcomes(p.1).Inordertodothis,theyexploredthewaysinwhich
spatiality,connectivityandtemporalitymediatepedagogicalandotherrelationships
thatcanimprovestudentlearning.Theemphasishereonmediationisimportant.It
suggests a very different mechanism is at play than one of determination. They
recognised that empirical evidence was far from extensive and agreed with
Woolner, Hall, Higgins, McCaughey, and Wall (2007) that:
viii Foreword
Theresearchindicatesthatthereisanoveralllackofempiricalevidenceabouttheimpactof
individual elements of the physical environment which might inform school design at a
practiceleveltosupportstudentachievement(Woolneretal.,2007,p.47).
Morerecentlyhowever,Barrett,Zhang,Davies,andBarrett(2015)havesuggested
thatdifferencesinthephysicalcharacteristicsofprimaryschoolclassroomsexplain
16% ofthe variation in learning progress.They claimthat this isthe first time that
clear evidence of the effect on users of the overall design of the physical learning
space has been isolated in real life situations. Their findings point to a classroom
rather a whole-school design effect:
Surprisingly, whole-school factors (e.g. size, navigation routes, specialist facilities, play
facilities) do not seem to be anywhere near as important as the design of the individual
classrooms.Thispointisreinforcedbyclearevidencethatitisquitetypicaltohaveamix
of more and less effective classrooms in the same school. The message is that, first and
foremost,eachclassroomhastobewelldesigned.(Barrettetal.,2015,p.3).
A more comprehensive view argued by Sailer and Penn (2010, p. 12) is that:
Humans shape their buildings through design practice (social agency affecting spatial
structure); humansshapetheir organisations throughmanagement practice (socialagency
affecting social structure); then buildings shape organisations (spatial agency affecting
socialstructure);bothorganisationsaswellasbuildingsconstrainagentsintheirbehaviours
(socialstructuresandspatialstructure-agencyaffectingsocialagency).
Thiscomplexdialecticalviewoftherelationshipsbetweenbuildings,humanaction
including management, social organisations and social structures informs the way
schools and their designers, constructors and occupiers should be studied.
Thisiswhere thisbook Designinglearningspaces for student wellbeingmakes
an important contribution.It sets out toinclude theperspective of wellbeing inthe
theory and practice of learning space design. In so doing, the authors bring new
ways of theorising the relationship between design, human action and wellbeing
into play. There is considerable emphasis on conceptualising school spaces as
places of bodily engagement. The authors draw on aspects of recent developments
in social geography, sociocultural theory and sociomaterial theory. Some of the
argumentswillprovokeresponsesanddisagreements.Inourmindsthatisalltothe
good.Thisisafieldthatneededa‘shake’bothintermsofitsgazeandtheorisation.
This book provides valuable challenges to multiple policy and practitioner fields.
Oxford, UK Harry Daniels
Hau Ming Tse
Department of Education
University of Oxford
Foreword ix
References
Barrett,P.,Zhang,Y.,Davies,F.,&Barrett,L.(2015).Cleverclassrooms:Summaryreportofthe
HEADProject(holisticevidenceanddesign).Salford:UniversityofSalford.Retrievedfrom
https://www.cleverclassroomsdesign.co.uk/reports-guidance.
Carvalho, L., Dong, A., & Maton, K. (2009). Legitimating design: A sociology of knowledge
accountofthefield.DesignStudies,30(5),483–502.
Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). (2006). Assessing secondary
schooldesignquality.ResearchReport.London:CABE.Retrievedfrom:https://www.thenbs.
com/PublicationIndex/documents/details?Pub=CABE&DocID=281242.
Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2002). Time for standards: Reforming theschool
workforce.Ref:DfES/0751/2002.London:DfES.
DepartmentforEducationandSkills(DfES).(2003).Classroomsofthefuture:Innovativedesigns
forschools.London:DfES.
Earthman, G. I. (2004). Prioritization of 31 criteria for school building adequacy. Baltimore,
MD: American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Maryland. Retrieved from: http://www.
aclu-md.org/facilities_report.pdf.
Kraftl, P. (2012). Utopian promise or burdensome responsibility? A critical analysis of the UK
Government’sBuildingSchoolsfortheFuturePolicy.Antipode,44(3),847–870.
OECD.(2013).Innovativelearningenvironments.Paris:OECD.Retrievedfromhttp://www.oecd.
org/education/ceri/innovativelearningenvironmentspublication.htm.
Sailer, K., & Penn, A. (2010). Towards an architectural theory of space and organisations:
Cognitive, affective and conative relations in workplaces. In 2nd Workshop on Architecture
andSocialArchitecture,EIASM,Brussels,May2010.Retrievedfrom:http://discovery.ucl.ac.
uk/1342930.
Woolner,P.,Hall,E.,Higgins,S.,McCaughey,C.,&Wall,K.(2007).Asoundfoundation?What
we know about the impact of environments on learning and the implications for building
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03054980601094693.
Preface
Stevenstoodonthedeckoftheoldschoolbuilding.
Thebreezerustledthroughthenearbytrees,andbrought
snatchesofsoundsfromtheplayground.Theresearcherhad
askedSteventoidentifyaspacewherehecouldthinkand
learn.Hetookadeepbreath,openedhisarmsandgavean
eloquentsigh.Themusicroomwaswherehecouldplayhis
cellotothetrees.Nowordswereneeded.
This book attempts to put words to Steven’s experience, and inform a vision that
school spaces support wellbeing and learning. Schools are everyday places for
manychildren.Studentslearninschoolspaceslikeoutdoordecks,playgroundsand
corridorsaswellasformalclassrooms.Yetnotallschoolspacesarecomfortableor
conducive for learning. Noise and movement created by many people can fill or
even overwhelm the senses. Spaces can create a sense of social inclusion or
isolation.
This book is an expansive exploration of wellbeing as an integral dimension of
students’ experience of learning spaces at school. By grounding the discussion in
the varied perspectives of researchers, scholarly educators and students, we aim to
advance thinking and practice of learning space design across a wide range of
school settings from early years to secondary school.
Theauthorspresent avariety ofmethods, evidence,theoreticalmodels,creative
ideas and illustrative case studies—with a view to supporting the creation of
inclusivelearningenvironmentswherestudentsfeelsafe,supportedandinspiredto
learn (Fraillon, 2004; Masters, 2012). So in this book, readers can view learning
spaces,designandwellbeingthroughvarioustheoreticallensesincludingspatiality,
liminality, sociomateriality, imagination and student voice. Featured methods
include large-scale quantitative survey, qualitative case study, participatory action
research, ethnography and sociomaterial analysis and visual data analysis. The
research findings inform innovative designing through participatory, values-based
approaches.
xi