21st Century Learning Alliance Fellowship

I was very pleased to receive an email on Thursday informing of our successful bid for a 21st Century Learning Alliance Fellowship. The 500 word bid submitted was:

Aims:

1. To engage learners in exploring and interpreting space, especially around school buildings.
2. To develop a core of learners that can actively, confidently and skilfully use their knowledge of the built environment to engage architects and planners during the BSF process.
3. To investigate how space around schools can be developed to maximise cross-curricular learning opportunities.
4. To provide a record of the transformation of Priory School

This project will allow learners and teachers understanding of how 21st Century Schools can use space to transform learning. Priory learners will be empowered as they will be able to make a positive contribution to the school's BSF journey.

As Space is one of the most important concepts of the Key Stage 3 Geography Curriculum, the department is ideally positioned to lead this project. Through his involvement in innovative projects such as Urban Earth and Mission Explore, David has a wide range of experience of successfully developing the conceptual understanding of learners while exploring spaces in new an innovative ways. Joanna is currently developing a group of young people who will engage with the BSF project in collaboration with the Solent Architecture Project.

The project will develop the understanding of learners and teachers:

Learners will begin by exploring the current school. They will record their feelings, thoughts, ideas and perceptions. What would they like to change? Why? Pupils will be encouraged to present their ideas in a range of formats. They will also use the language of the built environment. A small pilot group has already been engaged with the BSF design professionals. This project will develop their confidence through a range of workshops provided by community partners such as the Solent Architecture Project.

Visits to exemplar buildings that are innovative and aspirational will be organised. Pupils will explore these spaces and use their ideas and findings in order to inform their Priory vision.

Teachers will engage in action research. The purpose of which will be to recommend how the built environment can be used to maximise cross-curricular learning opportunities. This will inform the BSF process not only at Priory but in other schools in the future.

Outcomes

• Pupils will collaborate to produce a weblog of the project. This will be published via the school's VLE

• The ability of young people to successfully engage in discussions with professionals and their knowledge and understanding of the built environment will improve. This will be measured through online questionnaires at the beginning and end of the project.

• The understanding of how spaces can be designed in order to maximise learning will be shared through David's blog. It is hoped that educational professionals in other institutions will benefit from this

• The team will use Geographical Association (GA) contacts to report in GA publications.

• A record of the schools transformation will be produced. It is envisaged that this will utilises a wide range of media. This will form a 'digital time capsule of the journey' that can be shared.

This is where I could do with your help! Do you work in a modern school building? Do you use or have you adapted your school's grounds in order to support learning outside of the classroom?

If so it would be great to hear from you.