Schools conference session - Context and Change, Your Perspectives

Scotland’s School Estate ConferenceContexts and change: your perspectives

facilitated by

Diarmaid LawlorHead of Urbanism

contextsdifferences

matter

changepressures and

responses

benefits

Aim

Scotland’s School Estate Conference

briefing

evaluation

contextsdifferences

matter

changepressures and

responses

benefits

• Perspectives: challenges & opportunities- your view

• Policy: change in legislation and processes

• Potential: spaces to respond to desires for learning

• Practice: collaborations for learning benefit in Scotland

briefing

evaluation

Scope


Challenges

What, for you, are the key current challenges to delivering change in the school estate?

Context and change: your perspectives


Good practice

What, from your current experiences, are the good practices we should do more of?

Challenges

What, for you, are the key current challenges to delivering change in the school estate?

Context and change: your perspectives


Challenges


Why change?

Do we understand why we need change?• Equity of opportunity• Pedagogy• Briefing for context

Why change?

Why change?

Picture of what change looks like• Challenging and

promoting messages• Vision and reality

How to predict uncertainty• Demographics/tensions• Sustainability• Planning for growth and

not

Challenges


Why change? Conditions for change


Why change?

Why change?




not

Leadership• Bravery• Short termism• Community facility

Why change?

Why change?

Environment for change• Tensions: strategic v

localism• Old work practice• Silos

Inertia• Expectations• Opposition• Fear of unknown

Challenges


Why change? Conditions for change Resourcing


Why change?

Why change?




not

Leadership• Bravery• Short termism• Community facility

Why change?

Why change?

Environment for change• Tensions: strategic v

localism• Old work practice• Silos

Inertia• Expectations• Opposition• Fear of unknown

Capital• Reducing• Competing priorities

Affordability• New and improved

existing

Revenue• Maintenance• Energy

Best practice


Integration

Context led robustness

Persuasion

Behind the good practice story

Time

• Discussions about what learning in places of change looks like• Corporate asset management• Integrating community and education facilities and services

• Misleading definitions ‘Good practice’• Accepting not one size fits all; open-ness to variety• Robustness on capacity assessment

• Proving the value of what you do• Persuading people of benefit in the new school• Desire for more work on Post Occupancy Evaluation

• More time, and space to interrogate the story behind the examples• Multiple ways to access information: online, educationalist views,

designer views

• Conversations to drive new ways to create more time and resource to do goodpractice

Scotland’s School Estate ConferenceWorld Café sessions: summary

facilitated by

Diarmaid LawlorHead of Urbanism

World Café sessions: topics


• The collaborative briefing processes used by East Dunbartonshire in their investment programme in six secondary schools, and in their recent design work with SfT. This will be led by Jan Pollock, Quality Improvement Officer at East Dunbartonshire.

• The principles of briefing for learning beyond the school gate, and the potential of using existing civic assets in places to support a range of learning opportunities, from learning towns to agile classrooms led by Dugald Forbes, educationalist.

• Learning from briefing for refurbishment of small schools, how communities, teachers and learners were engaged, how the processes informed spatial briefing and the challenges to scale up to apply the lessons learned to larger, more complex estate challenges. This will be led by Annette Patterson, Asset Development Manager for Scottish Borders Council with Lesley Munro, Headteacher from Earlston and Gordon primary schools.

• The idea of shared spaces to facilitate ambition and attainment by learners, of all ages, and backgrounds; and attachment by communities. This session will provoke questions about how we create spaces for learning, challenge zoning, ask questions about overlapping programmes and relationships in space between teachers, learners and communities. This session will be led by Steven Quinn, Head of Service, Education and Skills at North Ayrshire Council.

• Learning about practical processes of briefing for and delivering spaces for outdoor learning, citizenship and development of children and young people. This will be led by Juno Hollyhock, Executive Director of Grounds for Learning.

• Sam Cassels took the final session which looked at the options to re-think buildings we already have to deliver the Curriculum for Excellence


Deciding on decisions• Layering decisions in the briefing process

Leverage• How do we get added benefit from the school as a place for learning, for all people, from 3-

70 years old

Balance of investment• Balance of investments and outcomes: how do we re-consider basis asset maintenance,

new build and refurbishment to achieve better outcomes• What is the value of investment in the estate in terms of outcomes achieved?

World Café sessions: emerging discussion points [a]


Reflecting the reality of how we do things now• Changing patterns in how we work: is this reflected in the design of spaces for young

people to learn?

Supporting different learners in different ways• Challenge to the idea that attainment has improved, despite investments in the built estate• Building better spaces to improve modern skills for work, learning and life• Can we have smaller classrooms, use what was the corridor for some learners self

motivated, and host people who need extra support in the classroom?• Is student attainment all there is to the idea of attainment? What about wellbeing,

collaboration, behaviours?• Is attainment to do with teaching or the spatial environment?

World Café sessions: emerging discussion points [b]


What is the role of consultation and how do we leverage it?

• Who is involved in the briefing process?• The people you involve in the briefing process will all be coming from different perspectives• When you take people’s views on board, the embrace the spaces. It can help attainment• Are there qualities of a basis brief, generic qualities that can bespoke from place to place or

condition

World Café sessions: emerging discussion points [c]

World Café sessions: summary feedback from topic groups [a]


Collaborative briefing processesCollaborative briefing works well. The challenge is to get stakeholders involved earlier in the process, and to use a variety of techniques to engage everybody. Engaging the learner is important, and this in itself, with the realities of how decisions and actions happen, can be a valueable learning process for them.

Learning beyond the school gateLearning beyond the school gate, and learning from the work of the people working on Learning Towns in Dumfries is an exciting possibility. This is particularly the case when schools are being brought together around a centre, using the investment in the schools, and the place, to make the centre work for a range of people, in a range of ways, at different times. Participants felt that vocational learning in particular could benefit from this model, and a desire to explore what more academic focused learning could look like.

World Café sessions: summary feedback from topic groups [b]


Briefing for refurbishment of small schoolsThe challenge here is to scale up learning around processes for changing buildings for learning from the small to the big. The small scale allows intense discussions with all interests to develop consensus about actions. This discussion looked at the balance of outcome from prioritising the education brief over the property brief, and the way this set of values changes the trade offs and balance of decisions in investment. Some key issues emerged around how to structure the strategic brief, the vision; how we lead the process of education driven briefing; how we share intent on a wider basis to get buy in from learners, teachers, parents and wider interests.

Shared spacesParticipants felt that schools should sit at the heart of communities, used by communities. Fears over concurrent learning and community use need to be addressed to unlock the potential for whole community learning. This is about politicians, officers and community leaders working together to both identify the actual barriers, and work together to overcome them. We also need to interrogate why it has been difficult to achieve more of this form of concurrent use. Is it old thinking, is it too difficult? The changing landscape of finance and resources may bring opportunities to tackle these issues and make spaces work harder for everyone.

World Café sessions: summary feedback from topic groups [c]


Outdoor learningIf we are serious about Outdoor learning, we need to value it, and influence policy to achieve it. We need to better understand the reasons why things around the use of outdoor space change from early years to secondary. At second level, young people go out, a lot less. The key question is how we make this transition different, in all contexts, from clusters of schools working together, to exploring opportunities within schools. A key challenge at second level, where the focus may be on exams and attainment, is to link outdoor learning and examinations. Make outdoor learning count as part of learning for all. Changing buildings and interiors of buildings we already haveInfluencing people about changing buildings, and interiors is about showing models. We should celebrate the fact that there are awards now looking at re-invention of a primary school and a building schools for the future scheme in the Glasgow Institute of Architecture process. These are two different examples of realising learning and education need in Scotland. There are some really good examples around. Share more.

Layering decisionmaking in the briefing

process, and the quality of time

spent on the different

processes

The importance of

communication, consultation and collaboration in

briefing

Design is briefing, and

briefing is part of design

Briefing is a continuous process of

problem finding and resolution

through the whole life of a

building

We need more examples of

good products [buildings and

spaces for learning]and

processes

World Café sessions: Alastair Blyth final summary]
