Kingsdale School Case History

We selected Kingsdale School in Southwark, South East London, as our first partner school.

We chose Kingsdale for a number of reasons::

• The design of the school buildings was typical of many post-war comprehensives.
• The school was on OFSTED special measures at the time of the project, which meant it could not access capital funds, although it was in need of refurbishment.
• was keen to work on the project, and the LEA agreed to allocate funds to the project.

In 1998, Kingsdale had 1067 pupils and 92 staff. A mixed comprehensive, 60% of Kingsdale's pupils were eligible for free school meals, 28% were on the special educational needs register and 24% came from homes where English was not the first language.

Before

After

The Team

The school, constructed in the 1950s and once beautiful, is in a severe state of disrepair. The building suffers from a range of issues including a lack of storage, narrow corridors, inadequate technological resources, a lack of temperature control, and poor dining and staff facilities. As a result the scope was defined as a complete refurbishment of the school buildings. The new head teacher asked how he could turn around a school where many of the classrooms were not fit to teach in, where the disrepair of the toilets encouraged truancy and where the general state of the environment at once mirrored and reinforced the low morale of pupils and staff.

An architecture competition

In collaboration with the RIBA competitions office, we devised a new type of competition for the selection of architects. We emphasised design excellence, but rather than asking architects to produce design ideas for the school, we asked them to show us how they would engage with the school community at Kingsdale. From 96 applications, we selected architects de Rijke Marsh Morgan to work at the school. A template for the competition is available from the RIBA competitions office.

A three month participatory process

School Works appointed an interdisciplinary team, including the architects, an educational psychologist, an education researcher, an engineer, a construction manager and performance artists. This team facilitated a three stage process which sought to uncover the issues at the school, develop emerging themes and build consensus on design and education recommendations. We worked with every one of the pupils, teachers and support staff at the school, as well as the surrounding community.

The intention was not just to explore the recurring themes: the state of the toilets, the lack of space for girls in the playground, the trouble with lockers, but rather to look at the way the built environment is itself a hidden form of curriculum, exerting effects on the possibilities of creative learning. The process itself added value, re-generating a belief in the future of the school, just one important step in the school's success in coming off special measures in 1999.

We asked why the school day essentially still operates in the manner of a nineteenth century factory production line; presenting a rigid timetable, delivering knowledge in chunks and moving large populations simultaneously at the sound of a bell.

With pupils, we looked at the ways in which the school was an institution out of step with their home lives and their expectations of future work. With teachers we considered the transformations of the knowledge economy and thus their potential role as facilitators of learning. With the surrounding residents, we considered the notion of the urban community and the potential for the school to become a hub of a wider learning network.

As an integral part of this enquiry, we considered what the new school might look like to support these wider social, professional and educational changes.

The findings