Amsleigh Park Primary School is a school with a main historical 2-3 story building and a cluster of old Bristol classroom buildings on a site that has good permeability to the surrounding. The existing buildings, with their individual classrooms, no longer suit today’s way of teaching and learning.

The design has enabled the provision of an exciting contemporary educational environment that includes a focus on the development of a Professional Learning Community (PLC). Working in a PLC facilitates the development of collective efficacy, enabling teachers to work more collaboratively on the design of teaching programs, whilst also building their capacity as teachers.

As a result, all of our teaching programs are more consistent across classes and teachers take shared responsibility for student learning outcomes. All elements of the school’s design brief in the educational rationale were well incorporated into the design features. The learning spaces now function as intended and indeed in most instances exceed our expectations in terms of flexibility, accessibility, and comfort.

For example, students and staff often move between spaces via the large operable doors, and the opportunity to mix and engage with other classes is now common practice. This opportunity also means that teachers can target the learning needs of different groups of children from across multiple classes. The design offers a flexible learning environment for students and staff. Classes have a defined classroom learning space, which includes a large operable and transparent door connecting it to other spaces.

The interconnectedness between classes and other spaces offers the opportunity to interact in different ways. For example, bringing all students in a year level together, team teaching, and breaking into targeted teaching groups. Transitioning between spaces is both easy and practical, with high quality operable doors meaning that spaces can be quickly opened.