Schools for the future: subtle shift or seismic change?

Abstract

This paper centres around a discussion of the design and rebuild of a secondary school in Birmingham (England) as part of the Building Schools of the Future (BSF) Programme. The BSF Programme was influenced by a vision of future schooling in which learning environments are transformed by the integration of ICT into teaching and learning practices. The vision behind the BSF Programme suggests that schools of the future will embrace a learner-centred and skills-centred perspective and that the boundaries between home and school learning will become eroded. By contrast, the vision of the senior management team of this particular Birmingham shool emphasised the importance of subject-based learning (for example mathematics, science, English), and was moving away from a skills-based approach to the curriculum. The paper draws on Young and Muller’s three scenarios for future schooling, in order to provide a framework for analysing the design of Park View School in Birmingham. The authors argue that the design of the new school is leading to new practices of teaching and learning that had not been anticipated by the senior management team. However, the BSF vision for how ICT would become embedded into the life of the school had not been realised at the time of writing this paper, and this, the authors argue, is because this vision is at odds with a focus on subject-based learning.

Keywords:

• schools of the future
• school design
• ICT and learning
• powerful knowledge
• cooperation

Notes

1. In 2010 this programme was curtailed by the new coalition government in the UK.

2. The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, see http://www.ofsted.gov.uk.

3. Bovis LendLease were the LEP for Birmingham. The Birmingham LEP is a public–private partnership founded to support the City Council’s goals of delivering a far-reaching change in the local education system with new infrastructure, the latest ICT technology and new ways of teaching.

4. Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority in Europe with 121 councillors representing over 1 million people, in 40 wards. The city council is also England’s largest local education authority, directly or indirectly responsible for 25 nursery schools, 328 primary schools, 77 secondary schools and 29 special schools.

5. This team included a representative of the Birmingham LEP, the quantity surveyors, the school leadership team, a representative from Birmingham Education Department, and the client’s design advisor.