Essential Educator Publications
A collection of Essential Educator Publications that are a recommended must-read for anyone working in the education industry.
Planning Learning Spaces
Authors: Murray Hudson and Terry White
Academic Summary:
Murray Hudson and Terry White have brought together leading educationalists and innovative school architects to pool their collective experience and expertise to inspire the design of contemporary leaning spaces. This collaboration has demonstrated the importance of understanding the intended approach to learning and teaching before thinking about the physical design of all spaces in schools. Sir Ken Robinson in this publication emphasised that ”reimagining schools is one of the most creative challenges in contemporary education”
Working directly with learners, schools and communities has now become a key part of the Planning Learning Spaces in Practice team established by Gratnells to make a reality of the vision set out in the Planning Learning Spaces publication. Collaboration with educationalists is central to our approach together with a wider range of architects and design professionals who care passionately about the effective design of environments for learning.
A Broad & Balanced Curriculum in Primary Schools
Author: Susan Ogier
Academic Summary:
Murray Hudson and Terry White contributed to the publication which establishes the importance of moving away from what has become for many the development of a too narrowly focused primary curriculum.
The book brings together a range of experienced teachers, researchers and educators who explore why we need to work together to “ensure that the next generation benefits from the broad and balanced education they need for the future”. It illustrates and develops in detail what good practice looks like in different areas of children’ s learning within the primary curriculum.
It is structured into three main sections:
Part 1. Understanding the context of children’s lives: Supporting holistic education.
Part 2. Making Learning Meaningful: Teaching and assessing a broad and balanced curriculum.
Part 3. The reflective teacher: Developing as a professional in the primary classroom.
Hudson and White contributed to the chapter “Transforming Learning Spaces for a Twenty-First-Century Curriculum”. Part 3.17.
Design for Education – Reimagining Spaces and Tools for Learning
Authors: Ana Rute Costa & Rachel Cooper
Academic Summary:
In the introduction to this publication the editors state that “this book brings together designers, architects, engineers, professionals, educators, and researchers that value the impact of spaces and tools on learning and present innovative research outcomes and case studies where design plays a key role in education”. The contributions are informative and wide ranging, drawn from Europe, North and South America, Africa, Australia and Asia. They all promote effective dialogue and shared-learning conversations that will lead in the words of the editors to ”the actions we need to take into the future of socially responsible design for education”.
The Planning Learning Spaces in Practice Team contributed two chapters to this publication.
A Call to Action: A Collaborative and learning -led Approach for the Design of Future Learning. Murray Hudson and Terry White. (chapter 7 )
A Catalyst for Change: Developing the Relationship Between Pedagogy and Space through a process of Collaborative Review with teachers and Learners at Trumpington Park Primary School, Cambridge.
Bhavini Pandya with Mel Shute and Anna Patuck , Trumpington Park Primary School, Cambridge, UK .(chapter 12)
INDOOR E OUTDOOR: L’ esperienza delle scuole milanesi del primo cicio di istruzione
Edited by: Cristiano Scevola e Mariagrazia Francesca Marcarini . Comune di Milano.2022.
Buy the book (Coming soon)
Academic Summary:
Terry White in contributing to this publication referenced some of the powerful influencers that shaped the approach to the book and also at the centre of the work of Planning Learning Spaces in Practice. ‘Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learner’ John Holt (1977) (page57).
This same philosophy was also held by Loris Malaguzzi, that what children learn does not follow as an automatic result from what is taught and to a large extent was a consequence of the children’s own activities. The work of Malaguzzi recognised the important relationship between pedagogy and space. In his own words he wanted to create “a handsome environment with its potential to inspire social, effective and cognitive learning” (page 57).
In this Publication the editors have successfully drawn together informed experiences and well documented examples of the evolving new spaces and places being developed through the implementation of the “Manifesto di Milano” All of those involved with the journey and the redesign of the Milan Schools have shared inspirational and motivating accounts through a highly collaborative process .The book demonstrates the critical importance of the meaningful engagement of learners, schools and communities across all aspects of the life and work of the schools and the design of interior and external learning spaces. The editors draw on a range of contributions from experts across Europe and internationally to further reinforce the importance or redesigning learning spaces to support a new era of contemporary education
rethinking learning spaces – gesher school, london, uk
Authors: Dave Strudwick, Director of Beautiful Mind Learning Labs
Summary:
How a special school redesigned spaces to improve culture and learning outcomes.
Gesher School in London is a high-quality, innovative, all-through, Jewish faith, special
school for young people with language, communication and social challenges. In this
study, David Strudwick, a school principal and founder of Beautiful Mind Learning Labs,
reports on the effectiveness of the Planning Learning Spaces in Practice (PLSiP) model
for developing holistic and systemic educational change at Gesher. The model explores
the important relationship between pedagogy and space and the evidence that reveals
its impact on improving learning outcomes.
Constructing Education: Building for Impact
Author: Council of Europe Development Bank
This report sets out the research that has been undertaken following the CEB report of 2021 on innovative learning environments, Constructing Education. An Opportunity Not to be Missed. Building for Impact demonstrates the importance of embedding an educational perspective into the design of new schools as opposed to seeing the building as only an architectural product .It sets out the four collaborative operational phases of its “Construction Education Framework” and the data and experiences of schools in Finland and Italy that have been implementing this approach over the last three years. “This means identifying education-related activities that should be carried out simultaneously with planning, design and construction to ensure that principals ,teachers and others get the spaces they really need ,and know how to make the best use of them when they move in.”