managing spaces
How might students feel ownership of spaces within a school?
What kinds of spaces could students have ownership over for an hour, a day, a month, or a year?
What might this do to aid in a sense of belonging?
Voice and choice are central to students feeling a sense of connection to school
Students experience and inhabit vertical schools differently to adults.
Choices about where to go and what you can do enable students to meet their wellbeing needs.
All of the participating schools had an aspiration to include student perspectives as an integral part of the school. Voice and choice was evident in decisions in different ways such as in relation to uniform, furniture options, curriculum, student leadership and school governance.
While student voice and choice were important to staff and students in each of the schools, students also highlighted where they wanted more opportunities to raise matters of interest to them that led to a visible outcome or response.
In schools, especially vertical schools, how can choices honour voices, and not become constrained choices?
“We do have a student representative group kind of thing, but they don't really focus on the things we think are important. Like it's good that there is SOME way that students can do something, but it's never really about anything important.”
Choices help students to...
Connect with others
Build Community
Mature
Choices help students feel more in control of...
Self
Environment
Comfort
Learning
"Well, like rooms like Heat and Go I like how unique and useful rooms like that are because in other schools, like primary school, you'd never be able to heat up your food and go eat as well. And what, like they just have one because it's useful to everybody at the school."
What do students value, be, do, and feel?
Students value choices within spaces.
“It is good to be able to rearrange the furniture, because it makes the rooms more easy to customise to suit whatever activity we choose to do.”
Students want to be consulting.
“[it's a] new school, it has a lot of new ideas and it's still improving. So we still have a bit of an input. And also even just a simple thing as not having a bell.”
Students like feeling connected.
MS It was my first seating choice at [school] and where I sat with my friends. SS> It reminds me of my friends that used to go to [school]. HS. I will always remember them because of that one spot on the oval
Voice is more than just having a say.
It is also being listened to, taken seriously, and acted upon.
"Some of the best places are outside our lockers... There's these chairs and, well, ...something happened and the teachers got mad at us. Now we're not allowed to sit there. That was a good place to reset and eat food and talk. But now it's taken away from us, and it is our fault. But now it kind of makes class harder, even or more, I'm not sure, like not relaxed, not calm.”
High voice and high choice promotes thriving.
thriving story
Choices within spaces create effective social and physical environments for learning
Students have different preferences and needs in relation to conducive environments to learn and connect.
"Lots of rooms like that, like the labs and the kitchens, the rooms that are useful for students to be able to do things that they might want to or need to do. Yeah, throughout the day"
Some voice and choice promotes mostly okay thriving conditions.
When students saw they had a voice or choice, it was generally spoken about positively, even when constrained. Students tended to use reference points relating to their past school experiences or what they 'knew' about other schools to contextualise their position.
"We don't have as much space as we like would like. And I know like other schools have, like, obviously we aren't other schools, but other schools have a lot more space to play. And I know some of my friends from different schools don't struggle with the same problems that we do. Like my friends at [another school], they've got a massive field that they can just play footy or soccer. They're happy and in recess and lunch like yeah, we need more spaces to play soccer and basketball and have fun outside. Not just inside."
Less voice and less choice results in mostly tolerable conditions
"Today felt hotter than usual, it might have been the extra stairs, or maybe there is something up with the heating/cooling unit. Whatever it was, it was impacting their focus. What was the teacher saying? Tap tap tap. Someone is tapping their pen on the side of their chair. If only there was a quiet space to get away and be able to concentrate”
Conversely, when students saw they had no choice or voice, the commentary was associated with not thriving.
Low voice and low choice promotes not thriving
Limited Choices
It can be challenging for students when they are not comfortable in the environment and when they have limited options or opportunities to change it. Students want to be able to contribute to a range of matters affecting them at school, not just those that are the focus of specific consultation.
"weird energy and in a weird way, this sounds really depressing, but I guess there's less like laughter. But that's just because, you know, we can't run around and we can't do all that stuff so that it's just a bit harder to be able to let loose and have a proper break."
"We used to be able to go outside during breaks, but now this year everytime we go down there, the year elevens are always there. Sometimes if we get there on our own first, they'll wanna play or interrupt our game or whatever, so now we don't actually get outside to refresh our minds. We just sit inside and let it all clog up... It's hard when the spot you need is already gone. You might have been caught in class for too long or whatever, so you usually don't get the spot that you want. It would be better if there were more spots like that. If there were more outdoor spaces to play sport or more quiet spaces to relax and focus"
Why is having voice & choice so important for salutogenic wellbeing?
When students have enough voice and choice (which will be different for different students), it promotes conducive conditions for thriving. Their involvement is meaningful which can help to offset aspects of the environment that may be challenging, providing their input is taken seriously and acted upon. In this way, genuine and meaningful input positively contributes to the manageability of the environment as matters that may impinge on an individual's ability to do what they need to do have a mechanism for timely redress. Conversely, when students don't feel as though they have enough voice and choice (which will also be different for different students) then a wellbeing tension is created that may inhibit the conversion of resources. When this happens, environments may feel less transparent and comprehensible.
Personal
Thriving is enhanced when students have agency in their environments. High voice and high choice opportunities promote thriving. Choices help students to connect with others and build community. It also helps students feel more in control of themselves, their environment, their comfort, and their learning.
Students don't have the chance to choose the classes they are in, (besides a preference which they have the possibility of not getting) the least teachers could do is give students the chance to pick their own groups for a task so they feel more comfortable in the school environment. This way if students don't get the work done its their fault and they can't blame it on others.
Thriving is enhanced when students are comfortable in the environment, recognising that to be comfortable may mean different things to different people, so the ability to change or adapt an environment through different options and choices in order for students to feel comfortable, is central.
"I think you also have to be able to feel isolated and connected, like if you want to, you can just sit in the corner. But if you want to talk, you can be with other people, and it's gotta be comfortable."
Social
Thriving is enhanced when students have genuine and authentic opportunities to share their views and provide feedback and input about different aspects of their experience and daily school life. Targeted consultations are useful, but can be challenging for students when they do not have or are unaware of other ways that they can raise constructive issues or have ideas for ways to further enhance something at school.
“Every two weeks the two people from each class, they used to, like, do it like properly, but they don't do the forums regularly anymore, but usually from each class, two people would go and you'd give feedback on the school, and that's kind of dumb these days. They don't do it anymore.”
Environmental
Thriving is enhanced when there is flexibility in the environment to be able to set up the best conditions for focus and learning. This may be different each lesson or even within different parts of the same lesson. Sometimes flexibility relates to furniture and room configuration, while other times it may be flexibility in managing external inputs (e.g. sound, light, smell) that supports thriving.
Make sure students have a say in which environment suits them to learn in. Especially for example, we had to be in the science labs for [non science class] at the start of the term. It was our assigned room. I believe that we suit dedicate certain rooms for specific subjects to make sure that the environment isn't too loud or hard to work in for students to be the most effective.
Thriving is enhanced when learning environments fit the purpose for which they are used. Spaces that are not fit for purpose can be challenging for students both in terms of being able to do what they need to do in the space, but also in determining the logic of its use. If the use of the space does not make sense, it can provide an additional demand on student focus and attention.
“It was talking about how the best classrooms are versatile because we have some classrooms where you can do anything in there and some classrooms where you can only do one thing. And sometimes it works only having it, for one thing, and sometimes it really does not, and people hate the classroom.”
Environmental/Social
Thriving is enhanced when the environment is inclusive for diverse learners and learning preferences. Students being able to effectively navigate and adapt the learning environment to accommodate their individual physical, psychological, and cultural diversity supports thriving and engagement.
Some teachers are very understanding and will let me work in a quieter space with low lights and less noise and some spaces can have different light settings so the lights can be dimmer or they have it so it blocks out some noise from certain rooms. there is also alot of different seating options in certain learning spaces which is really good.
Thriving is enhanced when students have choices within their environment. Students recognise some elements of choice such as furniture options were somewhat arbitrary but still important. Students valued opportunities for meaningful choices and felt having more influence beyond these constrained choices would support engagement and connectedness.
They have different types of seating, although we have set seats, we don't get to choose
"On the balcony there's a lot of them, so you can actually go to any of them. I think there's six of them in total, and you have a view of like the city. There is not too many out there today, so getting a balcony is good."
How can we encourage voice & choice for thriving?
lines of communication
How might students have more of a feeling that school leaders are listening to them?
How might authentic dialogue between many students and few leaders be managed?
How could student voice opportunity and response be better communicated?
How can mutual respect be made more visible?
What kinds of structures are used elsewhere to break down barriers to communication?
Problems surface more quickly within a vertical school, how can this be leveraged?
open possibilities
How might the range of choices for students be expanded within the constraints of space, time, and resources?
What other choices could students have that provide effective solutions to common problems?
What about multiple pathways to get from A to B within schools?
What more ways to exert control over comfort when learning to aid focus?