Lessons learnt
Reviewing school design: What are the key things to think about when designing a school?
While at CABE, I helped to review over a hundred school schemes for Building Schools for the Future, Pathfinder projects, Academies and primary schools. Based on this unique overview of school design across England, I was involved in a number of publications and presentations to identify lessons learnt in school design. Here are a few of the projects that helped to identify the principles behind a good school design:
Links and downloads
- Successful school design: questions to ask (pdf)
- Successful school design: Effective graphic approaches (pdf)
- Strategies for school refurbishment
- How to create your own free school
- School design review
- The CABE gold standard (subscribers to Architects Journal can click here for the original)
This resource helps clients and designers to address the key issues as they develop their school designs.
This resource helps designers to communicate their proposals, and ensure that they have addressed a range of issues critical to a successful school design.
This resource helps schools to think about the key issues when embarking on their own refurbishment.
This resource helps free school groups to think about the accommodation for their school.
Reports about individual school designs
This article by the Architects Journal looked at the quality of school design in the UK two months before the 2010 general election.
Working with schools: What are the best ways to involve children and parents in the design of their schools?
The Mosaic Approach has received international attention as a ground-breaking method for working with schools on the design of their learning environments. Here are a few publications which reference the Ashmole Primary School design.
- Transforming Children's Spaces by Alison Clark. Rutledge Education. February 2010.
- Creating Excellent Primary Schools by Andy Beard. CABE. February 2010.
- Architecture for Children [The Churchill Report: Australian study of early years building environments around the world] by Sarah Scott 2010.
- 'Early Childhood Spaces' by Alison Clark. Bernard Van Leer Foundation. 2007.
- 'All about designing with Young Children and Adults.' Nursery World. 2007.
Safety and security in schools: How can we make schools that are beacons to the community and not fortresses?
I have worked with a variety of schools where safety and security in schools is a major issue. There are many concerns for schools: terrorism, child protection, arson and bullying. There are also related challenges for schools in terms of acoustics, ventilation, community use, building appearance, planning guidelines, school operations and school ethos. Through my experience at CABE and in practice, I learned about many different ways of using the school design to ensure that a school will be welcoming and inclusive yet safe and secure. I also contributed to guidance for Partnership for Schools, with case studies, to help schools find an appropriate balance seemingly conflicting technical issues while mitigating costs and risks.
