Lasswade pupils helping design schools for the future
Pupils and staff at Lasswade High are helping a national initiative to understand and improve how school buildings are used.
Enhancing learning
Information on everything from locker locations to dinner hall queues could eventually inform the layout of new and existing schools to support pupils’ wellbeing, enhance how they learn, optimise space and reduce energy waste.
Special school visit
Pupils, including S6 architecture students, met with engineering consultants from Buro Happold, Paul Dodd, the Senior Associate Director with Scottish Futures Trust (the government body that helps the public sector plan and build construction projects), and Midlothian Council education staff recently.
Pupil experts
Midlothian Council’s Cabinet Member for Education, Councillor Jim Muirhead said: “Who better to give an account of the pros and cons of a school building than the people who use it every day?
Valuable insights
“Many thanks to the staff and young people who were able to give the team valuable insights into things like noise levels in classrooms and peak busy periods in the corridors.”
A CivTech Scotland challenge
The project is one of 12 CivTech Scotland challenges announced recently by Ivan McKee, Scottish Government Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise.
Driving innovation
CivTech is a government body established to drive innovation by taking problems public sector organisations have and solving them in collaboration with innovative businesses.
A collaboration
The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) and the council, in collaboration with Censis (Scotland’s innovation centre for sensors and Internet of Things), have been teamed up with the engineering consultants, who came along for a special tour of the school.
Data driven
Paul Dodd of the SFT said: “We want to gain an understanding about how people travel through buildings, and how they occupy rooms, spaces and external facilities, and in doing so realise a number of benefits including increased pupil wellbeing, identifying new capacities within buildings for growth and expansion, and improving the learning environment through data driven building management decisions.”
Highly productive
Shrikant Sharma of Buro Happold said: “Data and simulation technologies have the power to supercharge the school environment and also enhance student grades and wellbeing. Understanding how pupils and staff use the building is at the core of this, and it’s been a highly productive day to gather these insights while interacting directly with the school group.”
In the picture are from front right: Shrikant Sharma and Jamos of Buro Happold, Paul Dodd of Scottish Futures Trust. Behind them are Becky Hayward of Buro Happold, Magnus Inglis Principal Officer, Workforce, Policy, and Pupil Placements with Midlothian Council’s Education Service and Thierry Victor of Buro Happold (back row). To the left of the picture are design and technology teacher Lorette McKenzie and pupils Jack Birrell, Sam Hood, Kyle Ireland, Neve Wringe and Fraser Burgess.