Head Master's Blog - Inspiring Spaces and Why They Matter

Inspiring spaces and high-quality educational facilities are transformational – we know that the physical environment in which students learn and interact with one another changes the way in which they learn and interact with one another. The cumulative impact of this over time is enormous. This is why, year on year, school governors and leaders across the country invest so heavily to ensure that their students can enjoy exceptional facilities, purpose-built to the very highest standards. 

At King’s High we are enormously fortunate to benefit from our new £45 million, purpose-built, state-of-the-art school on our green and spacious Foundation campus alongside Warwick Preparatory School, Warwick Junior School and Warwick School. We moved to our new premises in September 2019 and I was thrilled to learn that our new school has won a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) West Midlands Award 2021. Paul Baxter and Nicholas Hare Architects won Project Architect of the Year for their superb work on King’s High. 

Yet, aside from the gongs, it’s important to remember the fundamental improvements that inspiring spaces and high-quality facilities bring. These can range from straightforwardly logistical matters (for example, we no longer need to bus our students across town to access sports facilities and swimming lessons and we now have ample parking for staff and visitors), to the deeper impact on student and staff wellbeing. 

For me, apart from the more obvious benefits of our state-of-the-art facilities, the fact that our new school is bathed in natural light and both surrounded by and centred around open green spaces is particularly impactful. Whilst the architectural decision to structure our main teaching spaces around a beautifully cloistered quadrangle may echo the traditional layout of the Oxbridge colleges, the value of internal green space providing a powerful focal point for our school community cannot be overestimated. 

We are now more physically active as a school as we are able to make the most of our 50-plus acre site, and more connected as a community as our new spaces – both internal and external – have provided greater opportunities for those all important public moments (assemblies, social gatherings and performances). 

To build on the success of our new school site, we launched our new Inspiring Spaces Project in 2020 to continue the work to create new, dynamic and cutting-edge facilities and spaces in and around our school. 

Our new Changemaker Gallery, for example, has transformed our School Reception area, offering a fascinating and powerful perspective into the values of our school community. Our St Mary’s corridor has been transformed into a stunning gallery space, showcasing the incredible artistic talent and creative flair of our students. The areas around the Mulberry and Red Corridor entrances have been developed into new social areas for students, and, outside our beautiful library, we have created a new Quiet Study and Wellbeing Hub with ‘chill out spaces’ providing oases of calm and tranquillity amidst the busyness of the school day. 

In addition, we have also worked hard to consider the optimal classroom designs and layouts for our students. Our Classroom of the Future Staff Working Party, led by Head 

of Geography Mrs White, has explored carefully the complexities of classroom design and the impact that this can have one the quality of learning and outcomes. Following on from this, we have developed newly-designed classrooms based on the ideas and findings of our working party. 

Whilst we are deeply fortunate that our classrooms are flooded with natural light and that our designed air-flow control systems can maintain an optimal temperature, we have chosen mobile Node chairs to provide maximum flexibility in layout, alongside writable paint or writing walls, with some added soft furniture and, of course, varied, bright, colourful and inspiring displays and decoration. This will offer each teacher ‘ownership’ and ‘flexibility’ to organise learning and layout to suit the needs of every group and particular learning activity. With the added benefit of a technology-rich learning environment through one-to-one devices, we are excited by the possibilities of our very own Classrooms of the Future. 

Drawing on ideas from biophilic design, we have also introduced plants across many of our internal spaces to connect us more with our natural environment and to create uplifting, sustainable spaces with high quality air. This has worked alongside our development of new external spaces, including our new apiary and Reflection Garden, where we have new plants, trees, and vegetables growing thanks to our thriving Gardening Club. 

Our whole community has taken great interest in and pleasure from our work to reimagine our learning environments, social spaces and outdoor areas. We have worked together to create innovative, flexible, forward-thinking spaces that inspire creativity and curiosity, and, importantly, support student and staff wellbeing. 

As I look ahead to 2022 and the plans to extend this work further, it is exciting to consider the ways in which school spaces are being liberated by the lifting of Covid restrictions, and how our students can benefit from new spaces which they have helped to develop. Our school environment is far more than a ‘container, backdrop or context to the educational experiences of our students: it is very much part of the experience itself, transforming the ways in which our community operates and the ways in which our students and staff interact with one another.

Dr Stephen Burley, Head Master