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Welcome to the Future-Proof New School

Predicting the future isn’t easy – anybody who works in education will tell you that. So, how do you go about future-proofing a new school? The answer is to specify a building system with adaptability built in.

Ideas about education best practice and the most effective learning methods are constantly evolving. So too is the world that education is preparing young people for. Future student numbers are also hard to quantify. This is why generations have been taught in temporary classrooms that turned out to be not so temporary.

Temporary classrooms are a stop-gap when demand for places increases rapidly and it’s difficult or expensive to extend permanent facilities. One of the potential advantages of modern building systems is that they should be easy and inexpensive to extend without having to rely on inflexible classroom modules.

Flexible Learning Spaces

The way that education is delivered will change – we’re just not quite sure how. Adaptability is everything.

A well-designed modern school should support flexibility in teaching and learning. Lessons might be delivered by a teacher standing at the front of a class, groups working independently, or multiple classes working in a large shared space. The choice should be dictated by the learning aims rather than physical constraints.

What if, when the bell goes, no students need to move? What if there is no bell? If students don’t move from lesson to lesson and remain in the same location for longer periods for self-directed or project-based activities, it will have a significant impact on the need for circulation space and the most efficient internal layout.

Modern building systems such as Osborne’s InForm product for education are particularly good at flexibility. The SIP-based system lends itself to large spans with movable internal partitions so that learning spaces can adapt to needs.

Extend Easily or Build in Phases

The system is designed to make buildings easily extendable, with precast floors and SIP panels that can be quickly fixed to existing structures. The initial design can be configured so that further space is easy to add, including the routing of services.

Essentially, the plan can be ready to go rather than having to go through the design process from scratch. The offsite method ensures that schools can be built in phases as demand increases, without a disruptive construction project having an impact on existing learners.

Future proofing isn’t about predicting the future with certainty, it’s about using a product with in-built adaptability at its core.

For more information about Osborne’s InForm product for education contact Caroline Compton-James ([email protected]) or visit our resource centre.

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