Andrea Wheeler (2007) Building Sustainable Schools: Are places of social interaction more important than classrooms?

1. Building Sustainable Schools: Are places of
social interaction more important than
classrooms?
Andrea Wheeler, RCUK/ESRC Early Careers
Interdisciplinary Research Fellow,
The University of Nottingham, Institute of Architecture and
School of Education

2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is part of an ESRC Early Career Interdisciplinary
Fellowship Research Project:
How Can We Design Schools As Better Learning Spaces and
To Encourage Sustainable Behaviour? Co-Design
Methodologies and Sustainable Communities.

3. KEY QUESTIONS/
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
To research how we can build better learning spaces, and to explore this from within
an interdisciplinary perspective, discovering absences and points of conflict (lacking
in current research).
To explore what is the relationship between learning, teaching Eco-Citizenship and
encouraging sustainable behaviour? How each relates to architectural design. One
of the questions of the project, is whether the social adaptation to climate change
(the ethical issues) could be the most important and useful issue for young people
to learn.
To explore participation techniques and practices with children and how to listen: To
explore place making and techniques and to analyse why children’s
participation/voice can remain tokenistic in many projects.
To explore social cohesion and sustainable school communities: How do young people
understand sustainability and sustainable communities – Have we something to
learn from them?

4. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION
1. The Context: Academies and the BSF programme.
2. Interdisciplinary: The problems of current research within this field.
3. The relation of architecture, curriculum and sustainability. Teaching to meet
the challenge of global warming and the potential of co-design practices.
Potential Implications for Policy and Practice in this area.
4. Early Pilot Research Findings – Young people’s perspectives.

5. 1. AIMS OF THE NEW SCHOOL BUILDING
PROGRAMMES (Academies and BSF) …
The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme launched in 2004 is
described as set up:
To improve the fabric of school buildings, either through refurbishment or new
build;
At the same time as transforming learning and embedding sustainability into
the educational experience.
The BSF programme, is committed to rebuilding or renewing every Secondary School
in England over a 10-15 year period, to spending £45 billion on the school’s estate
in the UK, and is now in its very early stages.
The first Building Schools for the Future School, Bristol Brunel School (formally
Speedwell Technical College), was officially opened by the Prime Minister
Gordon Brown on the 6th September 2007. Designed by Stafford Critchlow of
Wilkinson Eyre Architects.

6. “It is worth emphasising the scale and scope of BSF; there is no project like
it anywhere in the world. Not since the huge Victorian and post-war building
waves has there been investment in our school capital stock on this scale,
and of course the potential for new ways of learning has moved on
considerably since then” (House of Commons, Education and Skills
Committee, 2007, 13).
“The investment will enable the construction of high quality classrooms,
kitchens, dining halls, sports and ICT facilities and staff and community
rooms. We aim to have school buildings that are both inspirational and
get the basics right; school environments that are by turns practical,
sustainable, delightful, pleasant, accessible and secure: buildings that
support the principle that every child matters and serve the local
community” (House of Commons, Education and Skills Committee,
2007).

7. “New school buildings should serve their communities for many years
to come and it is important that they facilitate good teaching and
learning, provide attractive and comfortable environments for all users -
staff, pupils and the wider community - and that they are robust
enough to need minimal maintenance over time. Excellent design will
inspire teachers and learners, optimise inclusion and help to improve
behaviour and attendance. Design quality encompasses a number of
issues but should include sustainability, flexibility, adaptability and value
for money” (House of Commons, Education and Skills Committee
2007).

8. TRANSFORMING LEARNING AND
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
- Aims of the building programme
Teachers themselves have expressed concern that they are not clear what
transformative learning or embedded sustainability really mean in the
BSF programme design terms.
In consultations carried out with teachers, reinforced in questions posed at
the British Council for School Environment's Summit in July 2007, it is more
time that teachers say they need, time to explore what they want their
schools to be. The Design Council in a Press Release issued on the 13th
August called for more support for Head Teachers, and time for schools to
prepare so they can be “good clients”.

9. More holistic approaches to what sustainable development and
transformative learning might mean for any particular community have
had currently had too little discussion.
What is certain is that greater thought has to be directed to the
skills young people will need in order to adapt to the economic and
social changes climate change will bring.

10. AIMS OF THE NEW SCHOOL BUILDING
PROGRAMMES (Academies and BSF) …

11. AIMS OF THE NEW SCHOOL BUILDING
PROGRAMMES (Academies and BSF) …
Link to a video about the opening with Gorden Brown and Ed Balls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLYBEidc5f8

12. AIMS OF THE NEW SCHOOL BUILDING
PROGRAMMES (Academies and BSF) …
The BSF Samworth Academy in Bilborough,
Nottingham, sponsored by The University of
Nottingham. Architect, Graham Nobel, Atkins
Global.

13. 2. INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND
THE NEED FOR EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
PROBLEMS WITH THE CURRENT
CONTEXT… Woolner et al. (2007) suggests that
Government research should consider the evidence for the
relationship between environment and learning (especially
where there is a general enthusiasm towards evidence based
policy) She sees a paucity of clear, replicable empirical
studies about the relation of architecture and learning.
But in so doing she dismisses the judgements of architects
(architectural/professional experience is not evidence).
HOW TO ASSESS SCHOOLS BUILDINGS?

14. Each school will have its own set of problems to address, in addition to policy
objectives. Just as the social and environmental aspects of sustainable development are
not separate issues; neither are improved learning and sustainability those to be
addressed independently and attached at a later date. Each school will require a unique
context-based solution to both learning and the environmental and social aspects of
sustainable development, As the Department for Children, Schools and Families
(formally the DfES) publication Schools for the Future: Design of Sustainable Schools, states:
“Sustainability in schools is highly context-dependent: what works for one school with a
particular set of requirements and constraints may not be so successful elsewhere”
(DfES, 2006, 6). This is the nature of the problem. How architects’ address the aims of
BSF for improved learning and sustainability will be a complex challenge, and already
there are fears of failure.

15. 3. WHY ASK YOUNG PEOPLE?
And do the architect’s and teachers really listen?
How to ask young people?

16. And how to listen.
Some practices assume architects need to be talked to in the
language of a schedule of space requirements, told the
toilets have to be better, and equally the corridors. Is this
really helpful to architects having to meet complex needs of
transformative learning and sustainability? In this way the
social and emotional aspects of learning can be filtered out
of participation exercises.

17. 4.
PILOT PROJECTS
What do you think a sustainable community
is?
Pilot projects/focus groups with young people 16-19.
Pilot projects/focus groups with young people 12-15.

18. THANK YOU!
Andrea Wheeler
Andrea.wheeler@nottingham.ac.uk