Designing with Curriculum for Excellence
To define any curriculum, people would normally look at both the subjects taught within school and the pupils that follow the content listed within these subjects. However, the new Curriculum for Excellence (CFE) is far more than just a ‘list’ of learning outcomes. It is a way to learn and develop, as a result of how they access that very curriculum. Children will see the curriculum differently to the practitioners that teach it. ‘It is viewed as a landmark development in Scottish education, hailed by its architects as ‘one of the most ambitious programmes of educational change ever undertaken in Scotland’ (Government, Scotland, 2008a, pp8).
The Curriculum for Excellence was published in November …show more content…
Prior to the research behind Building Excellence, an aspirational seminar was held to discuss the ramifications that the new Curriculum has upon new school buildings and existing schools. ‘Building Excellence has shown so far that there is scope to help teachers and other school users better understand the ways in which the design and configuration of space impacts on learning and teaching’ (McKenzie, McMahon, Russel, Sweeney. 2007). The document takes precedence from Montessori methods relating to Herzberger’s schools and how they connect space and the surroundings to teaching independent learners. The design process of schools should exhibit the ‘Four Levels of Decision-Making’. These consider the two points; long/short-term decisions that affect a school building and the community that it thrives in. Building Excellence believes that the theory of the ‘extended school’ can work towards integrating the two together so much that the locked school gate concept could become a thing of the past and instead we would entrust the community and the school not to have boundaries between them. Within architecture this is a risk to expose the students at school to the community without some form of certain protection. However, new learning environments that CFE could collaborate within should really …show more content…
Without the statistical proof that a school is succeeding within the boundaries of the brief and the nature of its environment, the architecture that influenced it could be considered problematic. ‘The results of quantitative studies suggest that test scores can improve by up to 14% depending on the condition of the learning environment’, (Fisher, 2007). If the current reference schools begin taking similar studies, then projects can improve and learn from them. The issue with educational proof, however, is that the academic process takes at least 5 years to demonstrate whether the students are benefiting from the school or not.
Basically, our Scottish curriculum is a drastic change in education and has the potential to fit well within our schools but without certain variables it is flawed. The challenge with tailoring a building to suit the Curriculum for excellence is that it will be experimental and will only give an effect on learning after too long a period. As designers, we can at least aid in the moulding of the learning environment thus far.
Research has taken a large step upon designing facilities to suit education based on their curriculum now that the typical classroom organisation is no longer relevant to modern teaching methods (Fisher, 2005). Much of the research has identified specific approaches to teaching in pedagogy that influence the environment. These approaches
To define any curriculum, people would normally look at both the subjects taught within school and the pupils that follow the content listed within these subjects. However, the new Curriculum for Excellence (CFE) is far more than just a ‘list’ of learning outcomes. It is a way to learn and develop, as a result of how they access that very curriculum. Children will see the curriculum differently to the practitioners that teach it. ‘It is viewed as a landmark development in Scottish education, hailed by its architects as ‘one of the most ambitious programmes of educational change ever undertaken in Scotland’ (Government, Scotland, 2008a, pp8).
The Curriculum for Excellence was published in November …show more content…
Prior to the research behind Building Excellence, an aspirational seminar was held to discuss the ramifications that the new Curriculum has upon new school buildings and existing schools. ‘Building Excellence has shown so far that there is scope to help teachers and other school users better understand the ways in which the design and configuration of space impacts on learning and teaching’ (McKenzie, McMahon, Russel, Sweeney. 2007). The document takes precedence from Montessori methods relating to Herzberger’s schools and how they connect space and the surroundings to teaching independent learners. The design process of schools should exhibit the ‘Four Levels of Decision-Making’. These consider the two points; long/short-term decisions that affect a school building and the community that it thrives in. Building Excellence believes that the theory of the ‘extended school’ can work towards integrating the two together so much that the locked school gate concept could become a thing of the past and instead we would entrust the community and the school not to have boundaries between them. Within architecture this is a risk to expose the students at school to the community without some form of certain protection. However, new learning environments that CFE could collaborate within should really …show more content…
Without the statistical proof that a school is succeeding within the boundaries of the brief and the nature of its environment, the architecture that influenced it could be considered problematic. ‘The results of quantitative studies suggest that test scores can improve by up to 14% depending on the condition of the learning environment’, (Fisher, 2007). If the current reference schools begin taking similar studies, then projects can improve and learn from them. The issue with educational proof, however, is that the academic process takes at least 5 years to demonstrate whether the students are benefiting from the school or not.
Basically, our Scottish curriculum is a drastic change in education and has the potential to fit well within our schools but without certain variables it is flawed. The challenge with tailoring a building to suit the Curriculum for excellence is that it will be experimental and will only give an effect on learning after too long a period. As designers, we can at least aid in the moulding of the learning environment thus far.
Research has taken a large step upon designing facilities to suit education based on their curriculum now that the typical classroom organisation is no longer relevant to modern teaching methods (Fisher, 2005). Much of the research has identified specific approaches to teaching in pedagogy that influence the environment. These approaches