Consultation

We strongly recommend that all 'users' should be consulted as part of the BSF process, this includes pupils, (and future pupils from feeder primary schools), teachers and non teaching staff, parents, governors, current and potential community groups and individuals.

We also recommend that key partners and stakeholders are consulted at relevant stages during the programme to ensure a strategic and joined up approach.

This information on consultation has been provided by School Works and is based on their DfES demonstration projects with Wave 1 authorities. School Works is an independent, not-for-profit limited company. They work in collaboration with a range of partners, including the DfES, Demos, the New Economics Foundation and the DTI movement for Innovation.

If you are a student visit this link to take part in their student poll www.school-works.org/poll/

The School works process:

• Bringing together a team of experienced facilitators including educationalists, architects, educational psychologists, communication experts, and visual and performing artists;
• Involving nominated school and Council staff as facilitators and project champions in order to embed the learning at the local level;
• Hosting a walking tour of inspirational architecture for pupils, teachers and wider stakeholders to foster creative thinking about what is possible in school design. Participants meet local architects and location staff on route and are asked to imagine how they would find working in the different environments and express how the buildings and spaces make them feel. Equipped with disposable cameras, participants set about capturing what they like and dislike about some of the details, features, buildings and spaces we visit. The results are used to inform and prompt discussion at the Design Festival.
• Schools prioritising themes they want the School Works process to include. To date these have included the extended school; safety and security; communications and information; school identity and shared ownership; valuing the past; access and circulation; the heart of a school; heating and lighting; colour and texture; and relationships between people in the school.
• Creating and running a Design Festival led by experienced facilitators, and including representatives from both the schools and Council, to engage participants on design themes and issues relating to the proposed building programme. 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 Head Teachers; undertaken market surveys of the wider school populations; written poetry; and created collages in order to explore their aspirations for the new school.
• Providing the council with a detailed report of the outcomes and recommendations for the way forward.

Things for Schools to Consider in Choosing School Stakeholders

Pupils: We want this project to be as much fun as it is educational. Pupils will ideally be chosen to represent the diversity of interests, backgrounds and cultures to be found in the school. They may be those who have just begun, or those who are just about to leave. However, it's important to involve those pupils who you feel will most benefit from the exercises and be able to contribute to the project's success.

Staff: Should be a mix of both teaching and non-teaching staff.

Parents: For this project it may be best to consider those parents whom you know represent the interests of the widest possible cross section of parents. For example, parent Governors or members of parent teacher groups. Local Community Groups: representatives may be drawn from school user groups e.g. sports clubs, adult education classes or other groups which use the school facilities.