The first design result was a visual map of a school pupil’s journey through their seven years at Walker and how they would like it to develop in the future. ‘My learning journey at Walker’ includes everything from subject selection and key talks with teachers to career decision crises and vocational learning turning points.
The team looked at what the journey would be like for a student starting at the school. What will students encounter, and how will they develop their independence? They designed and visualised the experience they wanted to create. The staff and students agree they’ll use it to ensure they keep developing their school.
A second result was a colourful illustrated brief which the designers helped staff and students to write for architects tasked with building the new school. Called Dear Architect, this brief presents what the school needs from its new buildings by describing its vision of future life at Walker through activities and experiences the school wants its students, staff and community to have. It maps out the processes it went through with OurNewSchool and describes how and why decisions were made.
Download a PDF copy of Dear Architect, from the Our New School website www.ournewschool.org
Key elements of Dear Architect include a description of The Works, a space for vocational learning where students can enjoy at least one full day of vocational training each week. This ties in with a transformed timetable that no longer conforms to traditional hour-long lesson blocks set for a whole year.
The new school will have a vocational learning block containing things like a working hair and beauty salon, where professionals could work and train the students. There could be a childcare facility where teachers would bring their toddlers so the students could learn to take care of them. A café and bistro would be attached to a catering department for students to learn about catering and prepare lunch for the school. This sort of facility could be used by the wider community, possibly for adult education evenings, and it would rely on the outside community coming in to share knowledge and skills.
Online learning support will also be important to Walker. It hopes to develop an online curriculum which the students can access using wireless technology in open spaces around the school with minimal supervision.
In Dear Architect, staff and students say that ‘staff and student well-being must be at the heart of the design.’ They hope that ‘the visualisation of our plans and ideas will help us all gain a shared understanding and spark more great creative conversations’ with the architects.
Julia Schaeper from Engine, says: ‘Together with the people from the school we designed a brief that says: “These are the things that we feel our school should take on, this is what we would like our school to be in the future” and looks at the interactions, the activities and the things that are going on from a process point of view that then informs a visual and physical design of the building.’
OurNewSchool: the game
The game provides a structure for workshops in school, helping staff, students, governors and members of a Local Educational Partnership and others explore design challenges together.
The structure helps the group to identify issues around the day-to-day management of a school as well as issues around school planning and development.
It’s designed to help create mind maps and generate insights and issues and opportunities for the school.
The game features four sets of coloured hexagonal cards. The grey cards contain a set of challenges common to many schools. The blue cards make suggestions that are probably familiar to many headteachers. The yellow cards offer suggestions inspired by the way that many designers work. The pink cards are used to trigger ideas. Once all the cards have been dealt and placed, any school group should have a clearer map of its problems and how to go about looking for solutions. For the rules, visit www.ournewschool.org/rules