OurNewSchool
Over the next fifteen years, 3,500 schools in the UK will be rebuilt or refurbished under the government’s £70 billion Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, the results of which will shape the experiences of being at school for thousands of children and their families both now, and in future generations. BSF is the largest public design programme in the UK, and Dott 07 contributed through the OurNewSchool project at Walker Technology College in Newcastle, which is taking part in the BSF process.
BSF is not just about replacing old buildings with new ones, but about transforming the way we learn. Public policy and the change in local needs are defining a new role for schools which is increasingly about including the communities in which the school is located; creating energised places which take into account the needs of students, teachers and the wider community.
How OurNewSchool worked
What are the design priorities when a school is rebuilt? This was the question posed by designers from codesign team Engine, led by Joe Heapy, when they created an in-school design laboratory at Walker Technology College in Newcastle, one of the first schools in England to receive money from the government’s BSF project. Their aim was to enable all members of the community to explore options for the school’s development and they learned a great deal about how a school can make itself ‘design ready’. The team began by embarking on a discovery phase, working with pupils and finding out everything about their experiences of the school day. They went on to hold workshops on the subject of time and how the school might use it better. Engine worked with the teachers and students to identify a series of issues that needed addressing. One example was: ‘If we waste time at the beginning of a lesson because not all pupils have pens, then a system is needed that ensures every pupil has a pen’. The main topic to emerge from their discussions was vocational learning. It was agreed that the benefits to the school in having their own co-designed vocational learning zone would be numerous. For example, it would reduce time wasted travelling to outside vocational learning facilities and provide more choice and better opportunities for pupils. Engine and the students considered how this vocational learning zone might be best provided for Year 7 up to Year 14 in a way that would be sustainable, adaptable, and could potentially serve the wider community. They then organised small workshops with the BSF team, Walker head teacher Steve Gater, deputy head Mike Collier and Kath Davidson, head of personalised learning.
New ways to learnWhat next?
Nearly 40 years ago, Ivan Illich proposed that we should de-school society. His idea was that we should use existing technologies and spaces – the telephone, local radio, town hall meetings – to create learning webs through which learners could connect with their peers and with new contexts in which to learn.
Three decades later, Tom Bentley of Demos made a similar point in Learning Beyond the Classroom: ‘We should think of learning as an ecology of people and groups, projects, tools and infrastructures. We need to reconceptualise education as a living system whose intelligence is distributed and shared among all its participants.’
Details are still being looked at for the proposed vocational learning block and the design of the learning journey for students through school. The team is considering questions such as: what subjects will Walker keep on site? Who will use the vocational learning block? How will the block help to build links with local employers? How will it serve the wider community?
Engine is putting together a design brief in the form of a brochure that will be used by the school to help them present designs developed through the project. The brochure will include drawings, photographs and illustrated scenarios to bring the school’s ideas to life for parents, partners and the Local Education Partnership, the organisation that will be working with them to develop their new school.
The OurNewSchool project at Walker Technology College is a prototype for a way of working that aims to support schools in designing together. The plan is to see if the prototype can be transformed into a larger project, creating a design community of schools and developing new skills.
If you’d like to know more or would like to help, go to: www.ournewschool.org or www.enginegroup.co.uk
