Forward This report from Isis is a useful contribution to the quiet and thoughtful

revolution taking place in our learning spaces. Teachers and learners are
creating spaces in their schools that go beyond and add to the traditional
classroom. A better understanding of the needs of a variety of teaching and
learning styles is the driver of changes large and small.

Re-thinking education space has profound learning outcomes. Properly

understanding how learning spaces are changing is vital to our teaching
profession. As Kenn Fisher identifies, the ‘pedagogy of space’ is key to
continuing to make learning relevant, fun and comfortable. Frankly, new

Learning journeys
‘old’ schools will not properly serve the needs of a 21st century curriculum
or fast-changing learning technologies.

From Reggio Emilia in Italy to Maidstone in Kent, educators and designers

two truths and a suggestion
for new learning spaces1:
Moving towards designs
are working together to unlock the real potential of our school buildings.

Ty Goddard
British Council for School Environments

1 New ways of learning dictate a second generation

of school design – replacing ‘cells and bells’
with collaborative learning studios
 e un vé l o ,
e s t c o m m
“La vie, c' ncer pour ne pas
il faut ava uilibre.”
perdre l'éq
“Li
fe
To is li
k k
mu eep e rid
st y in
Alb
ert kee our g a b
Ein
s te
b
p m ala icy
in
ovi nce cle.
ng
.” you
 Preface The country is in the midst of a massive programme that could truly
transform education. As part of this agenda, people, organisations and whole
communities are looking at the buildings in which learning takes place; the interior
has an inevitable effect on how successful these buildings will be.

The University of Warwick’s CETL2 has done away with tables (they have a single,
large horizontal surface on which to work, and it’s called the floor – see page 11).
Some new academies, on the other hand, have retained 1200mm x 600mm
rectangular tables each accommodating two students, and arranged these in rows
facing the front and in individual 56m2 classrooms.

The extent to which schools will adopt one extreme or the other (or somewhere in
between) is a judgement each has to make individually. This booklet does not
advocate one over the other, it simply documents some of the current thinking,
research and opinion so that these judgements become informed ones. We make
no apology, however, for looking at moving forward towards a second, inspiring
generation of learning environments.

“Most of us went to dodgy,

ugly schools, and it fires you up to think:
What if schools were inspiring?
What if schools were what they
are not? What if they weren’t rubbish?”
Thomas Heatherwick, Educational Architect

2
Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Warwick’s CETL is called The Reinvention Centre

2 3
 Cells and bells? Primrose High School
by Seymour Harris Keppie, 2005

?
There is a revolution in the classroom of St Trinian’s scale. Building Schools for the
Future (started in 2005 with the aim of rebuilding or refurbishing every secondary school by
2020), together with the earlier City Technology Colleges and Academies programmes, has
re-ignited the debate in the UK about how schools should be designed. But while there is a
growing acceptance that we should not simply be building new ‘old schools’, how these
learning environments will manifest themselves remains very much to be seen.

In 2004 CABE 3 and RIBA4 commissioned Professor Stephen Heppell (then of Ultralab,
Anglia Ruskin University’s learning, technology and research centre) to conduct a research
project entitled Building Learning Futures. The results made grim reading: “Many of the
schools that are being built,” he concluded, “are unsuited to the changing future pedagogy,
curriculum and learner expectations that we can already anticipate.” They remain corridors
lined with classrooms, that, apart from the materials used and superficial styling employed,
simply reflect the teacher-at-the-front ‘chalk and talk’, didactic classrooms which have
remained, for the most part, unchanged since the Victorian schools that were built following
the first education act of 1870.

But society has moved on from the largely agricultural and manufacturing economy of the
last centuries to the ‘information age’, so it would be natural to conclude that what
“He shows
great originality
students are taught and the environments they are taught in, should be different too.

which must be
curbed at all
costs!”
From Peter Ustinov’s
school report
3
Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment
4
Royal Institute of British Architects

4 5
As designers, questioning and challenging the status quo is the very stuff of our
profession. We thrive on the notion that ‘if you always do what you’ve always done,
5
you’ll always get what you’ve always got’ . But design is only one discipline that contributes
to, and therefore influences the process of creating the physical setting of a school.
Research conducted in New Zealand by ACNielsen6 questioning perceptions about how
the teaching environment affected the learning outcome, clearly demonstrated a link
between the physical space and its effectiveness in supporting education. Every principal
who took part, as well as 93% of teachers and 81% of pupils, believed the environment
had an effect. But when BCSE 7 looked at how well the school environment actually worked
in the UK (May 2007), almost a third of all teachers (32%) said it prevented them from
teaching effectively.
In this booklet, we intentionally pose more questions than present answers. Our aim is to
engage with teachers, builders, architects and cost consultants; in fact anyone involved in
education, seeking to ensure the physical environment within a school truly supports the
delivery of learning outcomes. We’ll present ideas too – tangible pragmatic proposals about
how these issues may be addressed in today’s classrooms.

Best Practice in School Design report

ACNielsen
Respondents were asked: does the teaching environment affect the learning outcome?

Don’t know/not answered

Teachers (n=139)
None at all

Limited extent/not very much impact

Students (n=263)
Some extent/impact

reasonable extent/quite a lot

Principals (n=14) Major extent/a lot

-20% 0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

5
American life coach, writer and professional speaker Anthony J Mahavorick (pen name Anthony Robbins)
6
Best Practice in School Design, ACNielsen, 2004 New Zealand
7
British Council for School Environments

6 7
 Truth one The space should reflect the pedagogy

Sung by Louis Armstrong
ABC Records 1967. Written by Bob Thiele, George David Weiss & George Douglas
For as long as there has been a formal education programme, people have
questioned how and what we learn. How? In 1916 John Dewey commented,
“Nature has not adapted the young animal to the narrow desk, the crowded
curriculum, the silent absorption of facts.” And what? John Holt commented,
“Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is
senseless to try to teach it in advance 8.” This viewpoint was echoed by Richard Riley,
US Secretary of Education (1993-2001), when he predicted that the top ten
‘in demand’ jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004 – so we’re “preparing students for jobs
that don’t exist yet, using technology that hasn’t yet been invented, in order to solve
problems that we don’t even know are problems yet 9.” It is increasingly important,
therefore, that we don’t simply instil facts in children, but instead help them develop
strategies to learn. The fact that the Danes only have one word, lærer, for both

ry , I w a t c h learning and teaching, perfectly illustrates this subtle shift in emphasis.

e e b a b i es c m uch
“I s T h ey ’ll l ea r n
ro w .
them g ll e v e r k n o w .
r e t h a n I ’
mo o m y s e lf,
t
And I think derful world.”
h a t a w o n
w

8
John Holt, 1964. The quotation continues: “Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn
so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.”
9
Microsoft Building Schools for the Future Conference 2007 held at the British Library, London – 15th June 2007

8 9
 Truth one The space should reflect the pedagogy
“Don’t give
me a book Miss, The traditional classroom design – teacher at the front (the ‘sage on the stage’),
serried rows of rectangular tables accommodating fidgety pupils facing him

I’m a kinaesthetic
or her, remains schools’ primary building block. It bears more than a passing
resemblance to the church architecture (including, in many instances, tall arched
windows) on which it was based. While it is clearly ideal in supporting simple

learner.”
Boy quoted by Professor Guy Claxton,
during his keynote address at SETT05
lecture-style instruction, is okay for independent individual study and not bad for
accommodating student presentation (although its formality does little to promote
any interaction) everything else it does, it does with a degree of compromise.

But there are numerous other pedagogies that have a place in today’s
classroom. If we are to enable pupils to develop appropriate skills for the modern
world, schooling must embrace all sorts of other strategies, such as collaboration
and negotiation, and this should surely be supported by, rather than being in spite
of, the physical setting of our schools. On top of this is an increasingly accepted
move towards presenting lessons so they support the different learning
preferences of individual students.

President Kennedy University of Warwick Reinvention Centre

Humanities College by John Viner Associates

10 11
 The space should reflect the pedagogy Truth one Truth one The space should reflect the pedagogy

Educationalist, David Thornburg differentiated the ways students learn by using the
metaphors campfire, watering hole and cave. “The learning community of the campfire
brought us in contact with experts, and that of the watering hole brought us in contact with
peers. There is one other primordial learning environment of great importance: the cave –
where we came in contact with ourselves.” 10

This concept has been expanded by American education consultants Randolph Fielding
and Prakash Nair11 who claim that there are 18 different learning modalities [sic], of which
they believe only the first two or three are supported in a traditional classroom model:

1 2 3...
campfire
study

at cente teacher
e
with the format
re stag
ndent

tation
presennt
Lectur
Indepe

Stude

watering hole

4 Peer tutoring 9 Distance learning 15 Social/emotional learning

5 Team collaborative work in
groups of two-six students
10 Research via the Internet with
wireless networking
16 Art-based learning cave
17 Storytelling (floor seating)
6 One-on-one learning with 11 Performance-based learning 18 Team teaching
the teacher 12 Seminar-style instruction
7 Project-based learning 13 Hands-on project-based learning
8 Technology-based learning with 14 Naturalist learning
mobile computers

10
Campfires in Cyberspace: Primordial Metaphors for Learning in the 21st Century, David D Thornburg, PhD, January 1996
11
Fielding/Nair International – http://www.fieldingnair.com

12 13
 The space should reflect the pedagogy Truth one Truth one The space should reflect the pedagogy

They, as has Kenn Fisher 12, proposed different environments to support different
learning styles. Recognising the relevance of this, Partnerships for Schools, the
body charged with delivering the BSF programme, now requires within its BSF
policy guideline, that teaching spaces ‘can be adapted to different models of
curriculum delivery ’. 13
In some respects, none of this is new. It has long been recognised that specific
spaces need to be created for specific activities – it’s just that these have typically
been reflected solely in practical physical requirements, such as laboratories,
workshops and sports facilities. So to put Fielding & Nair’s observations into the
context of a typical British school, the traditional classroom falls down only in
respect of those aspects not covered elsewhere within the campus. If we accept
that there will always be specialist teaching areas, we now consider a general Key
Stage 3/Key Stage 4 teaching space should be able to support ten learning styles,
of which five (below) are, to a lesser or greater extent, accommodated within many
traditional classrooms:
Not withstanding the fact that traditional classrooms can be improved, they haven’t
completely prevented teachers from imparting knowledge and inspiring the desire to
learn! If they had, there would have been no Stephen Hawking nor Harold Pinter, let
alone millions of well-educated, rounded individuals, many of whom contributed to
the creation of the information age. (Harold Pinter, incidentally, attended Hackney
Downs School, later claimed to be one of the worst schools in the country14, and
which, whilst in Special Measures, was closed to make way for Mossbourne
Community Academy.)
We are proposing, however, that if we make subtle changes, concentrating on the
five learning styles (below) we consider to be less well supported, we’ll have a greater
effect on progressing classroom design.

Individual/independent study 1 6 Collaboration with

with or without IT structured groups of two-six
One-to-one tutorial 2 7 Seminar/discussion
Examination/test 3 8 Student/other performance
Formal lectures 4 9 Hands-on experimentation/
whole-class teaching experience
Presentation by students 5 10 Shared learning with peers

12
Research Fellow at University of South Australia’s School of Education Rubida – http://www.rubida.net
http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/knowledgebank/pdfs//linking_pedagogy_and_space.pdf
13
Partnerships for Schools, Building Schools for the Future Local Authority education vision policy guidelines for wave 2,
November 2004 14
The Guardian. Friday 23 February 2007
14 15
 Truth two Flexible furniture, flexible space

For today’s teachers, creating appropriate environments to support different

learning styles within the four walls of a classroom is difficult when all
you’ve got is 30 polypropylene chairs and 15 rectangular tables. Trapezoidal
ones purportedly offer a degree of flexibility, although I remember someone, when
faced with a meeting room and half a dozen such tables, likening the challenge of
creating a horseshoe out of them to ‘something off the Krypton Factor’.

Caravans pack quite a punch

Commonsense tells us that a simple solution is the utilisation of furniture that can
be used in a number of different ways. A trip around any education exhibition, such
as BETT or The Education Show, will demonstrate that there are countless folding
solutions – for example, dining tables with integrated seats that can be folded to the
side of a hall, allowing the space to be used for something else once the lunch
dishes have been cleared away. A darling of Orgatec15 in 2004 was Seattable – a
single product that can be used either as a seat or a table, meaning an audience of
200 can be accommodated on the same items of furniture as 100 exam students.
(The solution has not been adopted to the extent one might have expected though,
as its large footprint means you’ll probably only get 180 chairs in a space requiring

when it comes to dual use of furniture.

200.) There are tables that tip that may be used to define spaces when they’re not
being used for writing, and those that fold computer monitors into the worksurface
so that the same space can be used for IT and non-IT use. But despite the
availability of such solutions, a 1200mm x 600mm crush-bent, steel-framed table
and a couple of polypropylene chairs often remains the default furnishing solution.

at a
Is th ble?
& ta
sofa le bed?
ub
A do torage
s
Or a st?
c e
h
15
The biannual international furniture fair held in Cologne

16 17
 Flexible furniture, flexible space Truth two Truth two Flexible furniture, flexible space

When Shin and Tomoko Azumi were researching classroom management as part of their
award-winning submission to the DfES and Design Council 16, they noticed that “the
teachers were like performers, bringing entertainment into the classroom to try to maintain
pupils’ attention”. Their design submission, Orbital™, shown right, is intuitively mobile,
enabling students to move both their bodies and their desks, an observation that was the
inspiration of the much imitated concept of 360° learning.

Shin Azumi

“The teachers
were like performers,
bringing entertainment
into the classroom
to try to maintain
pupils’ attention.”
16
Orbital™ workstation with Keen for DfES/Design Council Furniture for the Future competition 2002

18 19
 Flexible furniture, flexible space Truth two Truth two Flexible furniture, flexible space

An important lesson learnt early on in Hellerup Skole (School) to the north of Copenhagen is perhaps the best known
example of where this flexibility has been extended from just furniture to the space
the development of furniture solutions for itself. This stems from the recognition that in order to make available a space that

offices was that to achieve maximum supports the pedagogical approach employed at a particular moment requires the
acceptance that you won’t necessarily remain within the four walls of the classroom.
flexibility, you needed the minimum number Hellerup is designed around nine home bases, each supporting between 75 and

of different components. 100 pupils, and from these zones, students move to areas that support the
curriculum and selected teaching style for that lesson. A timetabling nightmare you
When, in the 1980s, systems office may think, but this is avoided by a flexible approach in space demarcation from the
furniture manufacturers boasted countless staff. One problem with David Thornburg’s campfire, watering hole and cave
metaphors mentioned before is that because they are place-names they frequently
possible permutations and combinations, lead to distinct places being created for each, ignoring opportunities for the
Facilities Managers soon realised that in same place to be used in different ways. As an example, a meeting table in a quiet

order to avoid store rooms full to brimming corner could be a perfect cave. It could also be somewhere that two students
collaborate – thus a watering hole. For a small group (a very small group admittedly)
with redundant product after an office it could even be a campfire.

layout change, they had to restrict their

product specification to a few well-chosen
components, rather than a little of
everything. A mistake would be to adopt
a similar child-in-a-sweetshop syndrome
with schools. Enormous care must
therefore be taken in determining an
appropriate kit of parts.
(an example is shown on page 32-34)

20 21
 Flexible furniture, flexible space Truth two Truth two Flexible furniture, flexible space

Sh
ar
H

ed
an

le
ds E

ar F pre ora ion

St
Se

ni or se ti
on xam

ud C isc an

O – p l le atio
ng m n on
m Pe en est

ne e c n
In o o to res
en oll us ce
ex i n
Having been heavily involved in the 1990s with changes to office planning As most spaces within a school will be

in rfo ta

di ne pe
t

t r tu
pe ati

ar r tio

vi t e
du ut r
rim on/

a
e
a

al ori
b
methodologies, we see enormous similarities in the developments in classroom subject to a documented timetable, this

St al
t

ud
s
t

y
n
design, most prominently, those instigated then, by Frank Duffy , which also led 17
is our first descriptor – timetabled Large Learning Base
Small Learning Base
to a new vocabulary: hot-desking, hotelling and rightspace. Then it was spiralling space. Then, taking it as read that it’s
Core Zone
rents and increasing pressures for businesses to be lean that pushed designers and inappropriate to have different defined Exploration Zone
The areas considered relate to the
architects to look at ways to reduce floorspace through dual use. Now, it’s not the areas for each learning style (even if we plan on page 30

requirement to increase efficiency that is driving schools to look at dual use, but the had the space!), it remains important to
pragmatic consequence of seeking to provide different learning spaces within a fixed be able to break learning time down into periods with a different tempo in order
18
envelope of space . It’s important though, now as then, that the vocabulary to meet the unscheduled aspects of a typical lesson. Non-timetabled areas adjacent
becomes an intrinsic part of change management. to timetabled spaces provide opportunities to break out, thus the second descriptor
– democratic space. Finally social space – areas in which students are free to
roam, and potentially the greatest facilitator of social and emotional learning.
All of these spaces should accommodate more than one teaching style, and
between them accommodate all the styles that are required (we use a simple
matrix to cross-check this).

Wh
en S
ie mens plc relocated its headquarters’ restaurant in 19
99
n and incorp it saw a 46% red
cappuccino bar,
i

bo or at ed a uctio
okin n
gs of i That’s because
ts centralised meeting room suite.
ould now take place ov
informal meetings c er a c
offe
e.

17
Architect Dr Francis Duffy CBE – co-founder of international architecture and consultancy practice, DEGW, where he became known
for developing office-planning practices promoting the flexible use of space enabling, as he saw it, clients to make more efficient, more
effective, and more expressive use of [the] workspace
18
BB82 gives a minimum area of 56m2 for a general classroom accommodating 30 pupils + 8-11% float

22 23
 ...and a suggestion The concept of the Learning Studio

and now the suggestion... The concept of the Learning Studio

Once you start to blur these boundaries – between the formal and informal,
individual and group, the natural consequence is a learning studio, accommodating
a number of classes (as does the example shown on page 30). Chris Gerry from The
Cornwallis School in Maidstone (now Cornwallis Academy) has done this with New Line
Learning – an open plan space that relies on ‘earned autonomy’. The environment created
there has no walls between different learning spaces, although tiered ‘stepseats’ give the
space a sense of scale. Students self-police the room, – showing a respect not necessarily
seen elsewhere. For example, they happily remove their shoes when they enter it, in the
same way that countless primary school children, as well as pupils of all ages in
Scandinavia and Canada, change into indoor shoes after break. “We wanted to do that [at
Warwick],” said Professor Mike Neary, now at the University of Lincoln, who was
responsible for commissioning Warwick’s CETL. “It has a great levelling effect.”

It is important, however, that these projects are born out of clear pedagogic goals
rather than simply the desire for innovation. Questioning neoliberal education policies,
Warwick see their students “as producers” where “by connecting research and
teaching, undergraduate students become productive collaborators in the research
culture of the department.” 19

19
The Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research Two-year evaluation July 2007

24 25
 “It takes
Arranging classroom clusters around a central communal space gives schools and colleges Both The Marches School in
the ‘heart’ included in Gensler’s masterplan for Kent’s BSF programme. This approach is Oswestry and the London
similar to the ‘streets’ seen in many FE colleges and universities, and originally seen in School of Economics & Political
corporate headquarters buildings, such as those for SmithKline Beecham and Royal Bank
of Scotland. Niels Torp’s design for British Airways’ headquarters, Waterside, opened in
a village to Science are two establishments
that have proved you’re not

raise a child.”
21

1998, was an early exponent of the indoor street. “The only route into the building from
the carpark is through the street,” explained Kathy Tilney, who was Design Manager for
Waterside’s interior. “That way it acts as the hub. I can sit in a café in the street, and bump
into managers from different departments as they walk through.”
Reggio Emilia schools, meanwhile, accepted the importance of the interior since their
establishment soon after WW2, often describing the school environment as the child’s ‘third
teacher’. Reggio Emilia schools are also arranged around a central ‘piazza’, while the
classrooms have ‘atelier’ – workshop areas promoting experimentation and collaboration.
Fielding and Nair, in creating areas each with a different tempo, has ended with the unlikely
pairing of Jamie Oliver with Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci in naming alternative
zones: Einstein where creative reflection and inspired collaboration is encouraged;
Da Vinci supporting hands-on experimentation, and Oliver where we link food, nutrition and
health with participation – ‘nourishing mind, body and spirit’ . 20
reliant on a new build to create
these spaces. Whilst LSE
created a suite of rooms within their existing property portfolio, Marches simply removed
the walls between existing classrooms to create an ICT suite accommodating 120 students
without barriers between each. “Disruptive students lose the opportunity for disorder
presented by a closed door,” commented Marches’ deputy head, David O’Toole, whilst
students intuitively learned to speak with an indoor voice meaning those in adjacent spaces
are not disturbed. Regrettably the same cannot be said of Norman Foster’s new build at
The Business Academy in Bexley, where open-plan classrooms are located along walkways
that overlook a central atrium – in one case accommodating a resistant-materials
workshop. Unable to see, and therefore be aware of students in neighbouring class
spaces, there are no ‘indoor voices’ at Bexley, whilst inadequate sight lines prevent passive
supervision, meaning this relatively early example of open-plan space will ultimately be
modified – enclosed into classrooms by the Academy.

21
Proverb (possibly African or Native American), used as the title of books by Hillary Clinton and Jane Cowen-Fletcher, the latter of which
20
Master Classroom by Randolph Fielding, Jeffery Lackney and Prakash Nair – http://www.edutopia.org/master-classroom on the Elementary Category of the African Studies Association Trull Foundation Children’s Book Award

26 27
 Conclusion In all projects there is a time when decisions are made. Frequently they’re
made at the beginning – otherwise, we attest, the project cannot progress. And
as it moves on, so our knowledge increases to a maximum – just when all the
decisions have been made!

Amongst other things, we hope this booklet encourages you to pause for
thought: to realign the decisions you make with the knowledge that engagement
in the process allows you to acquire.

In order for the infrastructure of a school to fully support learning, we believe

we need spaces that reflect different teaching and learning styles, requiring
flexible furniture solutions and a flexible approach to space – fluidity in
determining demarcation lines; in essence, creating learning studios or
learning barns. There is an enormous body of research and opinion that
supports this approach.

These ideals, however, must be achievable within schools (many of which

already exist) and (specifically if it forms part of the BSF programme) should
be deliverable within a pre-determined FFE budget 22 set by central government.
As manufacturers, we need to be pragmatic about the
reality this set of circumstances presents. But as

D
ec
is
idealists, we should not be afraid to continue testing the

io
ns
boundaries. As the headmaster at Hellerup commented,

e
“The school building is never finished; experience

dg
le
w
should rebuild it over time.”

no
K
Time

22
Partnerships for Schools – http://www.p4s.org.uk/documents/FundingguidanceforBSFprojects2 007FINAL.doc (p14, para 60)

28 29
 Five Golden Rules

1.Less is more
Lots of each, of a fewer different items rather
than a few of each, of lots of different items.

2. Modularity/
Reconfigurability
It should be more difficult to get it wrong
than to get it right. Consider dimensions carefully.

3. Multi-use
Pieces of furniture that perform different
functions will assist in transforming pedagogies.

4. Right question
right time
The wrong question at the wrong time will
inevitably give you the wrong answer.

5. Quality
Differentiate between cost and value.
A cheap chair will always be a cheap chair –
you can get them from petrol stations.
Key

30 31
Individual table and chair
Individual tables and chairs are a staple
of our kit of parts because students are
individuals. This isn’t a cheap catch-
phrase – it’s just that you can’t work
individually very well with the more
common double tables – their only
justification, from what we can see, is
cost (as opposed to value). Everything
you can do with double tables, you can
do with individual ones too and linked
with power/data totems, or all-day
power packs laptop computers can be
used to integrate IT.
Orbital™ is the ultimate individual table
23
and chair , as, on top of this flexibility, is
an intuitive fluidity – promoting healthy
postural movement, and 360° learning.
23
See page 18
32
Group table
Despite this, a large group table has a
place – specifically one which has
additional functionality (the tops of ours
tip, allowing them to be stowed away,
used as room dividers – a dry-wipe
whiteboard even). How many people
does it accommodate? It depends on
the task and the individuals involved –
two, perhaps for a large artwork project
or twelve debating an issue.
Group seat/bench
In the same way, a long bench
accommodates the right number of
students. Again, lots if they’re working
collaboratively (and the teacher can still
get them to budge up and perch on the
end to assist) or less if they’re not.
Our StepSeat adds a second tier of
seats behind so when you move the
table, the space can be used as a mini-
auditorium – for performance-based
lessons, or simply start-of-the-lesson
instruction. Underneath there’s storage,
for resources (including EarthWalk
laptop chargers), whilst StepSeat also
adds a sense of scale to open plan
learning studios.
IT Bench
Desktop PCs provide robust connectivity
in terms of power and data, and this,
together with performance requirements
dictated by some software packages
make them more appropriate, in some
instances, to laptops and tablet PCs.
Traditionally PCs have been
accommodated on worksurfaces that
are fixed to the perimeter of the
classroom. In this way, power and data
is easily available, whilst teachers can
see what’s on the screen. Not so what’s
on the child’s face, even though you can
use software, now, to track what
everyone is getting up to on the
computer. Flipscreen is one way that
computers can be accommodated so
students face the front.
33
Informal seats
Upholstered stools and beanbags –
even Puppy stools from Big Brother,
all break down barriers between in-
school and outside-of-school. As an
architect once commented, “kids want
the mall, so we give them the mall”.
If their only educational content is
assisting students to engage with the
environment, their inclusion in our kit
of parts is well-founded.
Temporary space dividers
The acoustic folding walls that really
deaden sound transmission are so
heavy it’s been known for some
teachers to be unable to operate them.
Hardly surprising, therefore, that they
remain a white elephant and an
expensive white elephant at that.
Furniture solutions, such as Instant
Space or the Volume’s Pod provide
quick and easy demarcation of space
within open-plan learning studios.
34
 “Education
is not the filling
of a pail,
but the lighting
of a fire.”
William Butler Yeats

Useful links
www.bcse.uk.net www.fieldingnair.com www.school2-0.org
www.designshare.com www.p4s.org.uk www.school20.wikispaces.com
www.edutopia.org rubble.heppell.net www.tcpd.org

www.rubida.net/Rubida_Research/html/rr_index.htm
www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/resourcesfinanceandbuilding/bsf/aboutbsf/

Isis Concepts Limited

57 High Street, Tetsworth, Oxfordshire OX9 7BS
t: +44(0)1844 280123 f: +44(0)1844 281373 e: info@isisconcepts.co.uk
www.isisconcepts.co.uk

Published in the United Kingdom by Isis Concepts Limited. ©2008 Isis Concepts Limited.
Words James Clarke
Design Daryl & Louise Wilkinson
Print Europrint
Type/stock Coolvetica and Helvetica on 250gsm and 350gsm Core Silk board