New School

On Wednesday we are hosting a Design Festival, which will include a series of workshops run by architects from the British Council for School Environments. Over 300 students and staff will be involved on the day and they will consider one of the following topics:

• Changes in Teaching and Learning
• Use of Specialist Areas
• ICT
• Flexible Approaches to Curriculum
• School Identity
• Social Spaces
• External Spaces
• Communication
• The Extended School
• Access and Inclusion

A Design Festival is led by experienced facilitators, and includes representatives from both the school and Local Authority, to engage participants in creative thinking about their priority issues. A wide range of stakeholders can be involved and workshops are designed to be participative, engaging and fun. Previously, participants within festival workshops have constructed their own virtual reality school, developed role play exercises, interviewed community representatives such as the local Fire Chiefs and their Headteachers; undertaken market surveys of the wider school populations; written poetry; and created collages in order to explore their aspirations for the new school. Each workshop runs through a format which encourages participants to be aspirational for the future, but grounds their thinking in reality by requiring them to prioritise their future needs.

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