Skoolz rule OK!

Britain is building or rebuilding all its thousands of primary and secondary schools to fit them for today’s needs. Many new schools are being founded, especially in areas of population growth. The location and design of these schools is not, however, being considered as part of the drive for more sustainable communities.

So what should be happening?

Schools are a community resource and should be at the heart of each community. They don’t just educate our children but provide lifelong learning resources for all and facilities for social, sport and cultural activity all year round. They generate daily movement of children, parents and teachers, which is a major factor in traffic congestion and emissions and in the safety and socialisation of children.

A lot of the problems stem from the location of schools in relation to their catchments. Ideally, children should walk to primary school, not more than 10 minutes or 800m from home. Secondary school children should be able to cycle there safely. But schools often sprawl

on peripheral fields, bought cheaply and not allowing for easy access on foot, by bike or public transport. Movements to and from school don’t reinforce the local economy and schools are less used for other purposes as a result.

We now have an opportunity to reconsider the siting and design of our 3,500 secondary and 8,500 primary schools to be at the core of more sustainable communities, using less land and energy, generating fewer car trips and being used for much more of the year. In the capital alone, London First estimates a need for 110 new foundations to meet growth, requiring a site area equal to two-and-a-half Regent’s Parks.

The alternative to conventional siting and two-storey design is the “compact school”, integrated with other uses on or close to the local centre. Primary schools can be on the ground floor of multi-storey developments, wrapped around the blank walls of retail developments or in up to six-storey arrangements with play decks replacing playgrounds.

‘High-street schools would be a powerful regenerator of communities, creating round-the-clock footfall, supporting commercial and public uses’

Secondary schools can work on four to six storeys and provide an area’s public library and sports centre, be built above shops or perhaps linked to one of the new polyclinics. High-value sites can be paid for by incorporating high-density design and mixed use. Expansive former school sites have high disposal value for residential development .

High-street schools would be a powerful regenerator of communities, creating round-the-clock footfall that would support commercial and public uses and save everyone time by combining otherwise dispersed trips.

They would provide children with an education for life, reinstating the educative walk to school and seeing the community as a whole. Busy streets are safe streets. Including creche or day-nursery facilities at the school would help the parents of very young children on their way to work by public transport.

What about play and sports space? This has driven the preference for edge-of-town sites, but it must now be reconsidered as an overriding factor. Play decks have proven superior to open yards for primary school children, providing all-weather space and separating age groups. Indoor sports halls and rooftop all-weather sports surfaces can be effective and flexible. Bussing or walking children to sports fields is a better low-carbon choice than basing the e e whole school location on sports. Multi-storey schools are also great anti-obesity devices.

Low-carbon schools have a complementary energy need to housing, needing power, heat (and increasingly cooling) at different hours. Linked developments of school and homes can capitalise on this with combined systems. Indeed, one of the simplest mixed-use possibilities is to build homes above school space. This has already been done several times, providing flats above classrooms. A notable example is at St Jude’s and St Paul’s school in London N1, by Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association.

The case for rethinking school location and design is overwhelming. It will be greener, more socially useful and economically affordable to place schools at the heart of communities and dispose of peripheral sites.