Introduction
The school landscape can form a vital relationship between the built and natural world, connecting children to nature and natural processes such as growing and seasonal change. The potential benefits of educational programmes that connect with the outdoors are considerable; attention span, sense of wellbeing, self-esteem and personal and social communication skills are all allegedly improved by regular contact with the outside. Because these benefits are often intangible, it is easy to overlook their importance, but in doing so, vital opportunities to enhance learning achievements, group skills and social development (all of which can substantially contribute towards quantifiable outcomes) are lost. In this respect, access to well-designed, stimulating school grounds can and should be a core ingredient in planning the curriculum across all ages.
St Matthew Academy, Lewisham (ArchitecturePLB/Plincke). This all-through Academy for students aged 3–16 is designed around a series of social and curriculum courtyards to create distinct areas for different activities, group sizes and age groups. The natural topography of the site is used to help distinguish the primary and secondary areas.
Accessible outdoor space in schools is not limited to natural environments or contact with nature, but requires both formal and informal hard and soft spaces. The inclusion of specialist spaces that support vocational or project-based learning (such as an outdoor performance area or construction space) expand the variety of the learning experiences offered. The process of designing school grounds requires a keen awareness of the need for both planned spaces (ie formal curriculum delivery such as outdoor sports) and unplanned spaces that can support a variety of casual learning or social settings.
These are important considerations that should determine how the layout of school grounds is approached. The flow and sequencing of external spaces, levels of access, security and supervision required, will all underpin how successfully the spaces can operate and contribute to the daily life of the school. Ultimately it will be the school’s own practices and preferences that will determine the success or otherwise of their outdoor environment. But a well thought-through layout can substantially increase the options available and allow for future adaptation as needs and practices change and develop over time. In this respect, the designer’s job is to understand the school’s current culture of using outside spaces and whether it has the potential to increase in the future. An adaptable design should avoid being overly prescriptive and instead focus on creating a robust framework of external spaces that a school can take ownership of, value, and develop.
Key issues
The Building Schools for the Future Programme (BSF) sought to achieve a transformation in learning. Perhaps the single area most in need of a transformational approach is the design of outside spaces, particularly at secondary school level. Through a combination of neglect and under-investment, much of the outdoor school environment has become a sterile desert of mown grass, bare earth and tarmac, offering few opportunities for stimulating and imaginative use. In its 2008 report, ‘Learning Outside the Classroom: How Far Should You Go?’, Ofsted concluded that when planned and implemented well, learning outside the classroom contributed significantly to raising standards and improving pupils’ personal, social and emotional development. It was most successful when integrated into long-term curriculum planning and closely linked to classroom activities. In order to support this relationship when planning a new or refurbished school, the adjacency diagram needs to consider functional connectivity between internal and external spaces. If the early space planning ignores these relationships a critically important element in good educational design is lost.
Planning the school environment
Building Bulletin 103 Area Guidelines for Mainstream Schools (which replaced the previous Building Bulletins 98 and 99), sets out a non-statutory recommendation for external areas in school grounds. As described in Chapter 3, these include net, and non-net areas plus supplementary provision for community and third party use. The recommendations for net site areas include five sub-categories of external space:
- Soft outdoor PE (pitches and playing fields).
- Hard outdoor PE.
- Soft informal and social areas.
- Hard informal and social areas.
- Habitat areas.
The guidelines state that: ‘A variety of informal and social areas should be created to suit learning development and cultural needs of pupils during breaks as well as before and after school, and for a range of more formal curriculum needs’. Without a further layer of development however, these recommendations are little more than basic area standards. By placing the emphasis on quantitative rather than qualitative assessment, BB103 missed an opportunity to address the poor
BB103 compliant school grounds that only considers quantity.
St Ambrose Barlow RC High School, (AHR / Plincke). Imaginatively developed school grounds with a variety of learning and social settings.
quality of most school grounds. In the absence of a more balanced approach that considers both quantity and quality, hard landscaping equates too easily to tarmac and soft landscaping to grass, resulting in poor, uninspiring and soulless external learning environments.
An alternative approach is to overlay the spatial requirements with a matrix of potential landscape quality indicators. These could include:
- Accessibility. Are external spaces easily accessible from key social and curriculum areas such as dining, science, art, music, drama and design technology?
- Curriculum provision. Does the design of outdoor spaces support a range of different learning and teaching styles? Do they provide opportunities for different activities such as individual and personalised learning, group working, peer presentation and performance?
- Social provision. Do the external spaces offer a variety of social settings, from quiet, reflective spaces to noisy, robust ones for letting-off steam? Are there both formal and informal seating options? Does the design prevent active ball games from dominating other uses?
Using a quantity assessment overlaid with quality indicators will encourage more interesting and diverse solutions. Site planning can more effectively respond to the adjacency diagram. Outdoor learning can take on a more varied flavour, whether planned (a science class at the weather station on the terrace) or unplanned (a drama class outside in the amphitheatre when the weather is good). These flexible scenarios greatly enrich the learners’ experience.
Curriculum provision
The labelling of outdoor spaces is helpful in the initial site organisation stages of the design process. It can assist with the development of the adjacency diagram and identifies opportunities for teaching outside. So an arts inspiration garden, geology trail or science garden and pond are useful in organising the site, although care needs to be taken not to design spaces that are too prescriptive. Such an approach misses out on a fundamental advantage of learning outdoors, it is different to learning indoors. The outdoor environment presents an opportunity to blur the boundaries between curriculum areas (particularly with project-based learning) and, from the pupil’s perspective, between work and play.
A typical site planning diagram with a hierarchy of external areas from a welcoming threshold to secure breakout spaces.
The landscape should therefore be seen as more than simply an outdoor classroom for teaching the same indoor lessons but in the sunshine. Instead, it should offer alternative learning challenges, that complement those taking place inside, and cross-curricular activities that foster greater levels of creative enquiry and collaborative working. As the Ofsted study identified, when planned and implemented well, learning outside the classroom contributes significantly to raising achievement. Once outdoor learning is valued as a distinct and important resource, it becomes less prone to neglect and budget reductions.
Social provision
If we expect pupils to behave in a civilised manner we need to provide a civilising environment. All too common are vast areas of worn and patched tarmac, trampled and muddy grass, broken benches and overflowing litterbins. Yet such environments, sterile and unappealing as they are, would most likely meet the area requirements of BB103. The alternative quality matrix approach not only helps build the adjacency diagram for well-connected outdoor learning, it can encourage consideration of social settings.
For most of the year, the most important social space in the school is the outside. It is therefore a crucial part of the school’s overall spatial hierarchy. Instead of the traditional all-purpose playground, the school grounds should provide spaces for a range of different social activities. These should include an external dining area, ideally directly accessible from internal dining and with ample seating and preferably some type of shelter. A partially covered courtyard is ideal in providing a tempered environment where dining can be contained and easily supervised. Larger areas for active, more robust play can where possible be linked to hard courts or multi-use games areas. Where these are accessible at break times, physical activity can be promoted without the landscape becoming dominated by ball games. A careful configuration of seating, including incidental seating opportunities, such as wide steps, assist in creating more variety for outdoor socialising. Variety is not only important to address preferences for quiet, reflective spaces or active, noisy ones but also to recognise the different cultural needs of students. In this respect, style is less important than variety and configuration.
External social spaces also need to be age appropriate. While this is especially true in all-through schools, even in secondary schools the zoning of an area for year 7 pupils away from the older students can be beneficial. It is preferable in an all-through school that the very youngest pupils’ outside play spaces are both physically and acoustically separate to foster a non-threatening environment. This can be achieved with careful site planning and building positioning. Nursery and reception students should be able to breakout from their class bases directly into secure, well-supervised patio style gardens with ample opportunities for sensory experiences such as sand and water play. These secure gardens can then be linked to larger play areas for break time and curriculum use such as storytelling. The use of low-raised growing beds and tricycle circuits can add interest to early years spaces and help break up larger areas into active and quiet play zones. Covered space, providing shade and shelter, significantly extends the seasonal use of these areas.
Nursery and reception spaces should be secure for child safeguarding but directly accessible from the school drop-off to enable parents and carers to escort the youngest pupils directly to their class bases. Such an arrangement assists the overall site zoning, with the early years play located in a secure zone towards the front of the building and older pupils playing deeper within the site, behind the secure perimeter. This can often achieve the physical and acoustic separation between early years and older pupils although care needs to be taken to ensure that road noise and pollution at the front of the building do not outweigh the benefits of direct access to the early years areas
Designing for Extended Schools
The use of school facilities by the wider community has expanded significantly in the past 20 years. Sports facilities are often rented out to third parties, school halls are used for local events and classrooms, IT suites and LRCs can have an adult education or community function that extends the opening hours of the school. The site planning and early adjacency diagrams therefore need to consider how extended use may influence the number and configuration of building entrances, location of parking and the positioning of secure fence lines.
As schools increasingly become integrated, multi-purpose facilities, a balance needs to be sought between providing a safe and secure environment for pupils and the wish for a welcoming and inclusive, community-focused environment. A large part of the solution lies in understanding what needs to be accessible and when, coupled with a realistic assessment of how this might change over time. Placing those facilities with a community use closer to the access points and developing a strategy for secure zoning within the site at the outset can help avoid the addition later on of ad hoc security fences. In many instances, the building frontage itself can form the secure line, presenting a welcoming appearance and avoiding the need to cross an added layer of security fencing before reaching the front entrance.
Security lines within and around the school site need to be appropriate to the areas being secured and the level of risks involved. The creation of a threshold space between the site boundary and the main building entrance can act as a buffer between the wider community and the safe learning environment. The threshold space also provides an area for the school to showcase its successes and a place for parents and carers to meet and socialise.
Addressing barriers to outside learning
It is too easy to blame the failure to deliver high-quality, imaginative and stimulating school grounds on budget constraints. The common perception is that they are a desirable but inessential enhancement. If good landscape design is only considered to be an add-on, when budgets change it can just as easily be taken off. The more important question is to ask why school grounds are not valued more, when there is a body of research, both quantifiable and anecdotal, that demonstrates the benefits of high quality external spaces in schools.
The disconnect between the evidence and the delivery is of particular concern as we become increasingly risk-averse to our children exploring other landscapes, such as public parks or common land, without close supervision. An increasingly sanitised generation of young people whose formative experiences are largely devoid of contact and engagement with the natural world is especially worrying, as it will be this same generation facing unprecedented environmental change. The barriers to re-connecting with the outside are numerous, but in failing to overcome them we are simply compounding a lack of awareness, empathy and ability to understand the changing world around us.
Improving the experience of school grounds begins with an understanding that creative thought and enquiry is not directly measurable in grade-driven school league tables. Research undertaken by the New Economics Foundation saw increased levels of self-confidence, social skills, communication, motivation and concentration among those students participating in ‘forest schools’ exercises. These are all-important life skills for building a more capable and creative society. Yet such skills do not necessarily lead directly to increased league table positions. The introduction of a standardised national curriculum removed from schools the ability to adapt a syllabus based upon local or regional needs. For example, school farms, once commonplace at rural secondary schools have now all but disappeared.
While the BSF programme sought to achieve a transformation in learning and teaching, a whole culture of outdoor learning among teachers had been lost since the educational reforms of the 1980s and the emphasis placed on league tables. The replacement to the BSF programme has an even narrower focus on core curriculum subjects and places yet more pressure on good design in school grounds. Barriers to a stimulating and thought-provoking external environment have an impact on all students. At one end of the scale they result in the failure to deliver the inspiration and experience to satisfy the brightest students, while less able students (who might fare better with a more vocational education) risk becoming marginalised. The ultimate impact is felt by wider society – restricting the ability of students to think creatively, to enquire and observe, in turn reduces their ability to innovate in the future.
Addressing the barriers to high quality, stimulating external spaces begins by ensuring that schools are well planned and built to facilitate varied outdoor activities. In turn this will encourage a renewed culture of outdoor learning and of valuing school grounds.
Good Practice Guide: Key considerations for planning school grounds
Key considerations in developing the landscape masterplan for a new or remodelled site fall into the following categories:
- Site characteristics.
- Orientation.
- Presence and security.
- Pedagogy and teaching styles.
- Materials.
These headings help inform a checklist of questions to consider for each school project.
Site characteristics
Early survey work is essential to inform design development, including a clearly defined site boundary plan, points of access and topographic information. Where trees exist on the site, grading the condition of each tree at the outset can help inform the site arrangement. Wherever possible, the retention of trees of the highest quality will minimise planning risk. Trees also provide shade, a resource for curriculum material and increased biodiversity. Organising the school layout to integrate existing trees also provides a mature setting for new buildings.
St Mary’s Catholic College, Blackpool (Nightingale Architects (IBI Group) / Plincke). A site masterplan for a large secondary school that integrates existing landscape features, making best use of the areas available.
An ecology report will identify the value of the site for its wildlife interest, noting the likely presence of protected species and making recommendations for any further, more detailed surveys. Integrating any identified features of wildlife value into the BB103 habitat areas has the dual benefit of protecting and potentially enhancing the feature and providing a further source of curriculum interest, such as ecological cycles. Areas of existing and potential interest should wherever possible be connected to each other to create ecological corridors. Retained hedges, even those of a single species, can offer value as a migration route in more urban environments. The use of a Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) can also be integrated into the landscape design to maximise ecological opportunities and curriculum resource. Where a SUDS includes areas of open water (permanently or seasonally), these can be separated with low fences to denote supervised curriculum access only.
Orientation
The quality of external areas will be significantly affected by their orientation, providing exposure to, or protection from, direct sunlight, noise sources or the prevailing wind. These will influence not only the comfort of students but also the choice and arrangements of planting.
Playing fields and hard courts, unless floodlit, are best orientated with the direction of play approximately 5% off north - south. This orientation is to reduce the impact of glare from low sun angles.
Presence and security
A school’s physical presence within its surroundings is important in creating a sense of place in the community and street scene. A well-located school can aid natural orientation and wayfinding. A school located deep within its site has the reverse effect. It makes the entrance more difficult to identify and increases the amount of non-net space. However, the need to maintain an existing school in operation while its replacement is constructed on the same site, often results in an underused and difficult to supervise no-man’s land between the new school building and the street. In this instance other redevelopment options that require phasing and decanting should be considered. Alternatively facilities with both community and school use, such as hard courts within a secure fenced boundary can (with careful site planning) utilise this otherwise semi-redundant space.
Agreeing the site security and access strategy at an early stage is essential. Resolving questions of which parts of the site need to be made secure, the levels of community access – where and when - will all help to inform the security strategy as an integral consideration and not an afterthought. The clear segregation of vehicles from pedestrians and cyclists, and of cars from delivery and refuse areas, requires careful consideration to ensure a safe environment. On site car drop-off and bus/coach pick up/set down introduces other organisational constraints. In particular, a strong presumption that buses and coaches should not undertake reverse manoeuvres on the school site can influence space planning.
Investigating the direction from which students will be arriving, including nearby transport connections such as bus stops, pedestrian crossings and cycle lanes, can inform the location of entrance points. It is preferable for students to enter the site as early as possible from the surrounding road network as part of a Safe Routes to School strategy rather than a single main entrance. Once on site, cycle storage for staff and students should be provided in separately secured, covered areas with good passive supervision, eg from the school’s administration office, and within the secure perimeter. Additional cycle hoops can be provided close to building entrances for visitors. Proximity of cycle storage to changing and showering facilities is important in encouraging the take up of cycling.
In preparing a landscape masterplan, early consideration of the school’s travel plan and the local planning authority’s parking standards is also important. Car parking requirements for staff and visitors, as well as arrangements for student drop off and pick up, need to be established at the outset. The nature of drop off means that it tends to be more concentrated and requires a quicker turnaround time than the after-school pick up. Parking for disabled staff and visitors needs to be close to the school’s main entrance and preferably within 25m. If the school is to have extended use of facilities, such as a sports hall, this may require additional parking for coaches or minibuses. If the facilities for extended use have separate community entrances, disabled parking is recommended within 25m of each.
Pedagogy and learning styles
Understanding a school’s pedagogical style and approach, for example to personalised, project-based or vocational learning, can directly influence the design of outside spaces. Well-designed external spaces can either support learning outside or hinder it. New school models, such as academies, free schools and university technical colleges, have a greater freedom to develop and deliver a more varied curriculum which may require a different range of more specialised external spaces. A design’s long term resilience should also be tested at an early stage to ensure that it can accommodate future change and allow the adoption of new teaching styles or expansion for an increasing student roll.
Examples of learning and social settings, including personalised and group work areas.
Materials
The use of a simple palette of materials that are robust in use, easy to maintain and long-lasting is clearly important, although this needs to be balanced with a material quality that is inspiring and encourages a sense of enquiry. School grounds need to be rich and varied in their materials, providing a sensory experience that captures imagination. The material form of the school can provide a huge resource for curriculum development, from studying weathering patterns on different materials over time to scaling and trigonometry. At the same time, the quality of materials can help reinforce the identity and ethos of the school in the same way that poor quality, degraded school grounds reduce respect and care.
Varied choice of hard and soft materials that contribute to a learning environment that is civilised and civilising. Le Murier School, Guernsey (ArchitecturePLB/Plincke).
External furniture needs to provide a variety of seating arrangements and opportunities to dine outside and socialise in a civilised environment. Its design can offer a particular opportunity for student involvement or artist contribution, being both tangible and well used whilst not on the ‘critical path’ during construction.
The choice of planting species also requires particular attention to detail, avoiding plants that are poisonous or increase allergies while offering a rich source of curriculum material for a variety of subjects including science, art and technology. The selection of plants for their seasonal variety, growth and change characteristics, and for their sensory qualities is all too often neglected. Contact with nature and seasonal change can promote children’s mental and emotional health, while providing a calming environment and assisting with behaviour and the development of social responsibility.
Choosing plants and materials that maximise these qualities gives the school a toolkit to develop a more inspiring curriculum and learning experience.
Conclusion
To maximise the benefits of outdoor environments a full suite of external spaces needs to be developed alongside the internal adjacency diagrams. Identifying a purpose for each different area, without being overly prescriptive, assists with the creation of a robust framework that the school can develop over the long term. A clear hierarchy needs to be planned, from public to secure outdoor spaces with a legible arrangement of entrance points and well-defined boundaries. By offering a variety of settings, the landscape of schools can both support social inclusion and self-confidence and enhance the learning experience of students of all abilities. The design framework, which allows for different teaching styles to develop and change over time, provides flexibility and adaptability that will ultimately contribute towards an increased sense of engagement, responsibility and ownership.