An ideal school will aid in the overall development of the students. The Head, Hand, Heart approach refers to a method of teaching that encourages holistic development of the mental, physical and emotional abilities of a child. Through this approach, the school can ensure the integrated development of every child, making them thoroughly understand concepts by applying them in their daily lives. For the balanced mental growth of a child, it is crucial to develop both the left and the right sides of the brain. The left side of the brain focuses on logical thinking, reasoning and structured thoughts; whereas, the right side of the brain is involved in creative, innovative and lateral thinking.
Implementing activities that involve both sides of the brain can be encouraged in the school, so designing spaces for such activities become critical. Moreover, the school design and planning should allow children to explore the world outside the classrooms. So, how to design an ideal school that considers all the above-mentioned criteria and helps in the comprehensive development of children? This blog post spells out some ways to do so.
List of Contents
Some important aspects to be considered during the process of designing a school:
1. Classroom Design
The school teaches children to interact with their environment by using the classroom as a model. It employs books, teaching, playing and other activities as mediums for learning. This type of learning helps children in understanding the world and their role in it, thus shaping their future. That is why classroom design is an integral part of designing a school.
2. Auxiliary Facilities
The school comprises some elements and requirements that play an important role in shaping the learning process of a child. These elements that constitute a school act as supportive spaces for what is not taught in classrooms. The library, auditorium, administrative office, sports grounds and other components contribute to the learning process of the students.
3. Outdoor Activity Spaces
Children are great discoverers of spaces. They like to run, play, jump, hide, climb, talk etc. Apart from academics, the school can focus on physical and creative activities like:
Sports
Arts and crafts
Carpentry, pottery, weaving
Agriculture and farming
The spaces that can be introduced in the school to acknowledge such behaviour in children is:
Playgrounds
Workshops and activity areas
Gardens
Indoor play areas
Exhibition spaces
Theatre
4. Interactive Learning Areas
Spaces can be designed in a way that supports different methods of learning. Their use can evolve to cater to various activities. The interaction of a child with the building and its elements can assist in maximizing the learning experience at school. For example, the spaces can promote individualistic learning as well as collaborative learning. The process of planning a school involves thinking not only about the present but also its requirements for the next 25-30 years. Even though this exercise may slow down the planning process, it is necessary to pay attention to creating interactive learning spaces in schools.
5. Design Features
5.1 Colours for Schools
The school interior design has a significant impact on the learning experience of a child. Using colour as a design technique has a psychological effect on children. Colour and light can affect them on a cognitive and physical level. The colours in schools influence a student’s mood, attention, creativity, feeling of safety and comfort levels in a room.
Using light colour shades for the interiors makes the room bright with just daylight. Using dark colours on walls may make the room dull, leading to improper vision for the students. Ceilings or upper portions of the wall could be white to provide good lighting. Colours in the front section of rooms, behind marker boards and projection screens, should be darker than in other areas to reduce light reflections.
5.2 Signage in Schools
The necessity of signage in schools is to orient the children, staff and also the public within a school layout. Signage will help direct them from one space to another, also giving information of all the rooms in that space, activity spaces and other amenities available in the school. These can be represented by labelling the different buildings, displaying maps, routes, and milestones that can be installed across the campus.
6. Conclusion
The students, teachers and parents play a salient role in the design of the school building. The school building design assists, influences, teaches and structures the thoughts of students in the school program. The blogs in the upcoming weeks will discuss the afore-given of school design aspects in detail. They can help add value to all schools and improve the learning experience of the children.
Visit the link given below to know more on how we designed a special needs school for children with autism and other learning disabilities:
