New schools? (Article about the need to build new smaller schools)

I found this link on the David McWilliams website. Have to say, I find the idea both unique and fascinating.

http://www.tomweaver.co.uk/think/creditcrunchme.php

The author argues that the UK needs new schools, but these should be small and located within empty commercial space. There is currently an oversupply of commercial space here in the UK and here in Ireland.
The schools would have a maximum of 400 students.
The obvious drawback is space for playgrounds and sport fields. But he suggests these could be built in the community and shared between the network of "small schools".

I was only thinking yesterday that alot of empty spaces could be converted into schools at little cost.

The only difficulty is the lack of space around many of these empty buildings to provide proper recreational space for the children.

johnfás wrote:

I was only thinking yesterday that alot of empty spaces could be converted into schools at little cost.

Genius idea.
In Bettystown they are using an old hotel. Sounds depressing at first, but if kitted out well could work.

johnfás wrote:

The only difficulty is the lack of space around many of these empty buildings to provide proper recreational space for the children.

That's the big problem, but as the author above suggests, these new schools could be closer to homes, housing estates and villages than current schools. Local sports facilities could be improved, and then shared.

He also wants a shorter school day, giving kids more social time in which they can do sports.

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He also wants a shorter school day, giving kids more social time in which they can do sports.

And what will the mammies and daddies do then when they have to pay someone to babysit their darlings in the early evenings/afternoons? Or do they propose that all of that sporting activity would take place on school grounds and organised by teachers, who are already doing that and mostly of their own free (ie, unpaid) will. Or will that be regulated too?

It also assumes that all kids want to or will do sport and they most certainly won't. Making it compulsory would mean having the equivalent of PE after school every day which would raise interesting issues, not least of them for the manpower required to make it function.

Big industrial buildings bring with them huge problems if you want to convert them into schools - despite the fact that many schools look like rather ugly industrial complexes. The lack of windows is an initial problem. Really, the building would have to be razed and rebuilt to 'proper' school standards - which, by the way are particularly stringent though you wouldn't think it with schools transferring to hotels and village halls in emergencies. Major changes in regulation would be required to turn industrial units into classrooms and schools.

There's more required than kitting out - proximity of toilet facilities, green areas, windows, specified room sizes, fire escapes, access, recreation areas, laboratory sized rooms with adequate ventilation etc are all necessary.

Small schools have their advantages, especially if they are primary schools, but small secondary schools mean that it's very difficult to offer a broad curriculum because the numbers don't justify it the number of teachers who would be required. Teachers could be shared among schools, but for timetabling reasons, that would be very difficult.

Good point on the size of schools, particularly in regard to secondary schools. I don't think it would work at all with a secondary school. I was talking to a friend last weekend who is now teaching history in a school with 20 students per year - imagine the cirriculum restraints there. I went to a school with 150 per year meaning that we could still have a class of 20 or so for most subjects, even the more niche ones.

Someone sent me a link to this debate, which is a good read. As the original author of the paper, I'm glad the idea has resonated with some of you, and I found the comments against the idea very thought provoking too (always good to see, even if it makes me want to argue the case back).

First, just a quick note that my site got redesigned to integrate a new blog section and to allow people to directly comment on articles, so the link at the top is not now right. If you want to read an original copy of the article, it can be found at:

http://www.tomweaver.co.uk/ArticleDetails/tabid/72/ItemID/0/View/Details/Default.aspx.

Just a couple of things to throw into the responses.

Firstly, my reason for having a shorter day is because without circulating round from class to class, you make the learning experience more efficient and intense and so could theoretically reduce the school day without impacting the amount of learning going on. Bearing in mind that many secondary schools already finish before adults finish at work, there already exists many networks of after school social and sports clubs. So I would say, use some of the money you save from building a big new school (which was the premise of the article) to invest in local community services like youth clubs and sports clubs. It takes it out of the responsibility of the school, who frankly have enough to worry about, but develops local initiatives. That kind of after school initiative is already seen as a way to reduce crime.

Kate P wrote:

The lack of windows is an initial problem.

That really depends on the building! I've worked in some fantastic commercial buildings (especially old converted warehouses) that have more natural light than some schools I have been in. They do tend to be more deep plan, meaning getting natural light to the core can be a problem, but you just space plan such that the activities that take more time take place near the windows, and the quick activities take place deeper into the floor.

Kate P wrote:

the building would have to be razed and rebuilt to 'proper' school standards

Again, not necessarily. The majority of school building standards are there to ensure quality of environment when delivering education in a very standard way - for example, a large school of 1000+, with a subject based curriculum requiring departments of teachers delivring lessons in classes in one hour sessions for five sessions a day.

So acoustic standards are there to make sure one teacher delivering knowledge to 30 children in a standard classroom can be heard properly without echo and without the children having to strain, for example. But if you had the kind of school I describe in my paper, why would you bother dividing your classes like this? You could have teams of teachers working much more hands on with learners, providing a more personalised experience, and still provide a number of "attention" focussed learning spaces for when those are needed. But the rest of the space could be designed around the other learning types, such as discussion, collaboration, practice, inquiry (problem solving) and production (creating plays, movies, essays).

And I'm not suggesting you don't spend any money fitting it out. In fact, I think you would spend a lot. What I'm saying is, don't spent the money on "architecture", when the shell of the building is already there to be used. Spend it on fitting out a great learning environment.

Kate P wrote:

There's more required than kitting out - proximity of toilet
facilities, green areas, windows, specified room sizes, fire escapes,
access, recreation areas, laboratory sized rooms with adequate
ventilation etc are all necessary.

Toilet services are normally quite well addressed in commercial real estate, and in a small footprint the learners would not have far to go (and I'm thinking of secondary schools, so it would not be a greater distance that you currently go).

Specified rooms - as I already said, this should depend on what activity is taking place. It is one of the greatest misconceptions in school design that you have to design classrooms because the guidelines say so. I know the team that wrote the UK guidelines quite well, and they would be the first to say "not so". A classroom serves a particular purpose. Change the purpose, change the room. I won't go into too much detail about that now, but design should take place from the user and the learning experience first, and not seek to replicate old thinking simply because it is old thinking.

Yes, there could be issues about providing some specialist facilities. But what about partnering with a local university to provide those, and have all lessons requiring those facilities on one day a week so instead of coming into school, they go to the university? Schools are used to thinking of themselves as single entities, but they are not - they are part of a network of services which are often not properly explored and utilised.

johnfás wrote:

I went to a school with 150 per year meaning that we could still have a class of 20 or so for most subjects

Class size is often discussed as a constraint... Learning in a small school should mean you don't have to structure learning in classes in the same way, and can mix and match large groups for some activities and small groups for others. This is the future of learning, not having a regular sized class of 15, 20, 25, or even 30.

I'm not saying this is a perfect solution, by any means, but just because it sounds unlikely does not mean that solutions to any of the issues could not be found. There are hundreds and hundreds of examples of real small schools out there in the world - they seem to cope!

But I think it is useful to have the debate, because we assume a lot of things when we build new schools, and forget to question a lot of those assumptions.

Finally, is there any more detail on the Bettystown hotel conversion, such as the name of the school? That sounds very interesting and I'd like to find out more.

Best regards,

Tom Weaver

Hi Tom: I like all that thinking outside the box.



"The new school building arrives on site."

There are severe shortages and inadequacies of school buildings in Ireland: one of the many reasons we are so broke is that Government is building them hand over fist. For the last ten years I would say the majority of schools have had a couple of these parked outside.

THis morning by coincidence I was thinking about a village I know that built its own primary school in the early 1990s at a cost of 150,000 £ instead of waiting for the state to build one for 350,000£.

In Ireland any group that wants to start up a school can get together and set up (check out the Educate Together website) and if they keep going for a couple of years, Government in theory will build them a school. Irish language and multidenominational schools are the main ones that have been set up. They often set up in very unsuitable buildings that would probably get shut down in some jurisdictions, but live to tell the tale.

I am very much in favour of small schools for a reason different to yours. Large schools are distributed across huge catchment areas. It is impossible for most children to walk to school because of the distances. I think that having a catchment from which everyone can walk to school (about 10 minutes) should be a big consideration in urban schools.

Because we split children at primary level into different schools by religion, by language, by gender and by lower and upper age groups, schools tend to be ridiculously spread around and out of reach on foot.

Primary schools should be small so that children feel safe and not surrounded by scary strangers. The head teacher should be able to know every child by name.

We also have a good number of schools still in rural areas that are one or two teacher schools - did anyone here go to one, and what was it like?

tomweaver wrote:

johnfás wrote:

I went to a school with 150 per year meaning that we could still have a class of 20 or so for most subjects

Class size is often discussed as a constraint... Learning in a small school should mean you don't have to structure learning in classes in the same way, and can mix and match large groups for some activities and small groups for others. This is the future of learning, not having a regular sized class of 15, 20, 25, or even 30.

I'm not saying this is a perfect solution, by any means, but just because it sounds unlikely does not mean that solutions to any of the issues could not be found. There are hundreds and hundreds of examples of real small schools out there in the world - they seem to cope!

My point was not so much structuring learning in classes in the same way. My point was really that in having 150 in our year we were able to offer a vast array of subject from Woodwork and Technical Drawing to Classical Studies and Latin. Obviously it helped that I went to a fee paying school but even in a small fee paying school it is unlikely that they would invest in the facilities necessary where you only get one or two students who wish to take a particular subject. This is less of an issue in a slightly larger institution.

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Kate P wrote:the building would have to be razed and rebuilt to 'proper' school standards

Again, not necessarily. The majority of school building standards are there to ensure quality of environment when delivering education in a very standard way - for example, a large school of 1000+, with a subject based curriculum requiring departments of teachers delivring lessons in classes in one hour sessions for five sessions a day.

So acoustic standards are there to make sure one teacher delivering knowledge to 30 children in a standard classroom can be heard properly without echo and without the children having to strain, for example. But if you had the kind of school I describe in my paper, why would you bother dividing your classes like this? You could have teams of teachers working much more hands on with learners, providing a more personalised experience, and still provide a number of "attention" focussed learning spaces for when those are needed. But the rest of the space could be designed around the other learning types, such as discussion, collaboration, practice, inquiry (problem solving) and production (creating plays, movies, essays).

And I'm not suggesting you don't spend any money fitting it out. In fact, I think you would spend a lot. What I'm saying is, don't spent the money on "architecture", when the shell of the building is already there to be used. Spend it on fitting out a great learning environment.

Hello Tom,

All of what you say is true - in theory and indeed , judging by your post here, your philosophy is about rethinking education rather than simply rethinking the buildings.

Having said all that, a school that I used to work in recently underwent a considerable physical development and I understand it was a nightmare - the Department of Education refused to hand over money until their exact specifications were met. I find it hard to see how they will have the change of heart to consider the use of existing spaces unless absolutely necessary. It's not my intention to be negative about your ideas, but I think Ireland has a long way to go before we're ready for them. Or at least those who administer in the Department of Education and Science have a long way to go. In fact, it's my understanding that the schools that have most recently been given planning permission have more or less the same building.

The irony of course in this country is that many schools are substandard and yet aren't closed down.

I'm not sure that the phrase 'learning environment' is in the vocabulary of those who run the school buildings programme.

Kate P wrote:

judging by your post here, your philosophy is about rethinking education rather than simply rethinking the buildings.

Yes, that sums up my philosophy precisely: that schools should be rethinking education (from curriculum right through to pedagogy) in order to "rethink" the building. If they truly then decide that a subject based curriculum delivered using classes of 30 and one teacher is the best way to create the 21st Century, knowledge economy citizen, then that's OK and they should build the school that supports it. But not challenging any of the basic assumptions about what you are building, when the building being built or refurbished may well survive until 2050 and has to cope with many future generations of learners, is frankly a wasted opportunity.

Your words remind me of the situation surrounding PFI schools in England only a few years ago, and PPP schools in Scotland. I remember attending interview meetings with architects and contructors bidding to build new schools, and the council or Local Authority, and the words "education" or "learning" simply never featured. Building new schools was about creating newer, shiner and non-leaking versions of the previous buildings, perhaps with improved dining or social spaces. The learning space was never touched. I mention that because in a relatively short amount of time things have changed, so please have hope that the phrase "learning environment" may well enter the vocabulary.

The debate, here, has moved on partly because many other countries already got there and have been incredibly innovative around redesigning learning and then redesigning the school. New Zealand inspired much of Scandinavia, the movements spread to the US and Australia, and Denmark and Holland... eventually reaching here. Many people go to see groundbreaking schools like Hellerup Skole in Denmark, which has no departments or classes, but homebases with a variety of learning settings of 120 pupils being taught by teams of
teachers to a completely personalised day based around thematic, rather than subject based curriculum. Teachers often come back from Hellerup and say "culturally, it won't work here", but many schools over here are starting to innovate in a variety of ways, from new types of curriculum, to small schools within schools, to new approaches to group size and pedagogy. It's an exciting time of change.

Personalisation, here, is now a national policy (and supported enthusiastically by Partnerships for Schools, who manage the school building programme) and as such it makes it easier (though not easy) to begin the debates around how that impacts the school building. Much of this debate has been driven by the National College for School Leadership's BSF Leadership Programme, which essentially runs training for school senior managers to created "educated clients" who create more informed educational and design briefs for the architects. As much of the sessions are about vision, innovative practice and change management as are about the design process.

johnfás wrote:

My point was really that in having 150 in our year we were able to offer a vast array of subject from Woodwork and Technical Drawing to Classical Studies and Latin.

Certainly one of the big challenges is how to offer a diverse curriculum offering, whatever way that curriculum is structured (whether
subject-based, thematic/project based, problem-based or even experiential based). But this is an issue many big schools face too as
specialist facilities become more state of the art and expensive. Their solution is often to pool facilities and a lot of work is going into
working out how to enable schools to become clusters, networks or federations with shared facilities. There are a lot of factors to get
right, which I won't go into here, but I think it is as possible with small schools to share specialist teachers and facilities. Some of
those facilities may not even belong to the school - we've been talking recently about a school striking a deal with a local gym to use its
facilities in it's day time off peak hours on a Tuesday, rather than build its own gym.

cactus flower wrote:

I am very much in favour of small schools for a reason different to yours. Large schools are distributed across huge catchment areas. It is impossible for most children to walk to school because of the distances. I think that having a catchment from which everyone can walk to school (about 10 minutes) should be a big consideration in urban schools.

I totally agree - bringing the school closer to its community is a priority for a variety of reasons. Being able to walk to school would
be great not only for health but also for reducing traffic and carbon emissions.