The Marginal Gains of Classroom Design

Statistics can, of course, be presented in many ways, and organisations within and beyond the educational sector can select the most appropriate data to support their claims — as Benjamin Disraeli said “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”. League tables and data selection (and humour!) aside, what we do have is a duty to ensure our students have the absolute best chance of success and this, alongside the essentials of an holistic education, can come down to marginal gains from small interventions. Classroom design is one of the most overlooked.

We have been designing our classrooms in the same way since the Victorian era of lofty school board buildings: lines of desks facing the front, packed in tight. Did you know that the school bell reportedly only came about because quartz was so expensive some schools could only afford one clock, or in another origin story, because pupils were being prepped for the rhythms of the factory f loor? Easter holidays are long enough so children could go out and plant the harvest, while the summer holiday was for harvesting. These structures still affect school life today, well over a century later. Why?are we so stuck in tradition?

Let’s be progressive, shake up classroom design a little and see what inspiring environments we can create. Here are some of the aspects we could consider:

1. Lighting is Life: So much of our life is spent shrouded in dull and uninspiring lighting. Light contributes to how we feel, how we see colours, it shapes our mood and controls our response to the environment. More than often though it is an afterthought, and we are doomed to ‘strip lighting’. When upgrading to LED we often just replace the previous tungsten fixtures like for like, but LED lux levels are significantly higher. So, we have overly bright spaces and… headaches. A simple dimmer switch allows a teacher to control lighting for concentration work, collaborative, display or calming. Happily, dimmers don’t?cost too much.
2. Ergonomics Matter: We expect our charges to learn, but we put them in the most uncomfortable furniture. Concentrations drops by 50% after just 20 minutes of no movement. In a world of marginal gains, ergonomics to maximise comfort and concentration couldn’t be more important – for every child in our schools but particularly important for many neurodiverse students. Imagine how many lost minutes a year you have for each student for the sake of buying a ￡30 chair over one that is higher priced but that has a positive impact on focus?
3. Colour Changes Moods: It is well documented that colour can change the way we feel. The same applies to design, and the colours we use in schools are important to create the right learning environment. All too often you see primary school design being all about how many colours you can use. I believe in using colour as a task-based tool. Classrooms should be neutral colours to create calming environments, using display and subtle colour through furniture, or other means. Red is alertness, green is calming, orange is creativity. Also, don’t just limit yourself to paint, and do consider using lighting instead.
4. Air Quality: The CO2 average is 400ppm outside, but in most of our classrooms it can be over three times that. We have all been in a stuffy room and nearly fallen asleep. How many of your classrooms have the same problem? Ensure you have opening windows, cross flow, and if you can afford additional ventilation such as air filtration, do it!
5. Sweat The Small Stuff: Design is holistic and not just about instant impact. It is important to fully think through a design. How does it make you feel? How does it work on a day-to-day basis? Is it robust enough? A design can be breath-taking, but if the door handle breaks after a week this helps nobody. ? Pretty Isn’t Everything: We have all seen beautiful design schemes and thought ‘wow’, but after a time it starts to fade and is easily damaged. Thought needs to be paid to the robustness of a design. As a COO myself I see the full life cycle of design. Picking the right products that clean easily, stand up to daily use and have long lifespans are all part of the process. But you can still achieve great aesthetics, you just need to think them through! ‘Pretty’ fades fast but having rooms which are robust from the get-go ensures the gains you designed from the start stay longer.
6. Biophilia – I can’t emphasise enough the power of Mother Nature in the classroom. There are many studies which have showed positive responses to plants in office and learning environments. They aren’t often in enough volume to provide massive CO2 benefits, but the placebo effect of the green is mentally calming and can help boost creativity.
7. Stimulate Senses - A strong classroom design should stimulate as many senses as possible. The importance of touch and sound particularly can transform a learning environment. Thought should be paid to how differing (and preferably, sustainable) materials can be used to enhance the experience of learning.
8. Build Context - Wherever possible, classrooms should reference their local context or their history. Be these images of the past, motifs from logos or simply values and colour schemes, they can be incredibly effective at quietly reinforcing values, heritage and aspiration.
9. Look Beyond: Never just look to your own industry for inspiration. Look around you to see what others are doing. You might be surprised! Why shouldn’t schools look at the likes of workspace provider WeWork for ideas on classroom design, or restaurant chain Wagamama for our dining rooms? I strongly encourage anyone thinking of projects to ask students what brands they aspire to in retail and go look at these spaces. What makes them attractive, why do they work so well? Schools could learn a lot in this way.

I’m not here looking to preach on how to design classrooms, but to challenge us to all do better. A longstanding frustration of mine is when, in any building project, the focus seems to be on the building, rather than what goes on inside it. Typically, the Fixtures, Fittings & Equipment budget on a project will be less than 5% and is always first to be value engineered. Given we spend most of our time inside the building, why are we doing this to ourselves? I would encourage you to take a look at building accreditations such as WELL or LEED which, although they focus on a more sustainable approach, do offer a strong guiding principle for designing sensibly.

So, if you want to think about how best to serve your students, why not think about an inside-out approach to design and explore what marginal gains you might be able to achieve? It could help with the league tables, but most importantly it will provide your students with the boosted learning environment they deserve.

This article is a reposting of my original printed article for the 1st edition of 'Alleyn's On' from Alleyn's School . You can read the whole publication here.