04.A EDUCATION
Well maintained schools are less likely to be vandalised and sometimes a few basic considerations can make all the difference.
The school environment can have a direct impact on learning ability. It is alsomuchmore reassuring to teachers and students if the school is well designed and aesthetically pleasing. A huge chunk of a child’s life is spent at school, it is important they feel comfortable in their surroundings. Well maintained schools are less likely to be vandalised and sometimes a few basic considerations canmake all the difference.
A study across 27 schools in the UK of varying size, location and pupil count, involved detailed surveys of 153 classrooms and analysed if the school environment impacts on learning. Factors taken into consideration for the survey were naturalness; light temperature and air quality, individualisation; ownership and flexibility, stimulation, complexity and colour. The HEAD project; Holistic Evidence and Design, (funded by Nightingale Associates (now IBI Group) and ESPRC) found clear evidence that well designed primary schools boost children’s academic
performance in reading, writing andmaths and the results have been published in a report ‘Clever Classrooms’ (Barrett et al 2015). The findings of the study have been used as a basis for this section, and although the focus was on younger children, many of the design principles can be applied to any educational facility.
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