John MacDonald: The Govt's moral obligation to get rid of open-plan classrooms

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

Education Minister Erica Stanford is my politician of the day for announcing that the Government isn't going to be building any more of those terrible open-plan classrooms.

But she’ll be my politician of the year if she goes further than that and finds money to put some walls and doors in the modern learning environment monstrosities that already exist.

In fact, I think the Government is morally obliged to help any state school that wants to get rid of their open-plan classrooms. It’s morally obliged because this disastrous experiment was forced on the schools.

And it will cost a truckload of money but it’s the only option, in my mind.

Unless, of course, there are schools that are perfectly happy teaching kids in barns. They can fill their boots.

But I bet there are a truckload of schools looking at this announcement and thinking “what about us?”

The way Erica Stanford puts it is that she’s had overwhelming feedback that open-plan classrooms aren’t meeting the needs of students.

She says: “While open-plan designs were originally intended to foster collaboration, they have often created challenges for schools, particularly around noise and managing student behaviour.”

Which is a polite way of saying that it was a hair-brained idea that shouldn’t have seen the light of day. And to Erica Stanford and the Government’s credit, they’re not building any more.

Which Rangiora High School principal Bruce Kearney says is great, but he wants to know about all the schools that have already been lumbered with open-plan classrooms.

Some of which have had a gutsful and have spent a lot of their own money turning the barns into old-school classrooms.

Rangiora High School is one of them. They spent $1.5 million. Shirley Boys’ High School in Christchurch spent $800,00. And Avonside Girls' spent $60,000 on screens and acoustic panels because a full fit-out was going to be too expensive for the school to pay for on its own.

Avonside principal Catherine Law says she is “thrilled” to see the move away from open-plan because it’s done nothing for students having a sense of belonging, and it had a really detrimental effect on teaching and learning.

She says year 9 and year 10 kids —the old third formers and fourth formers— are the ones who seem to struggle the most, because they’re the ones getting used to high school.

She says those years especially are the worst times for kids to be expected to try and work in open-plan areas. She says there’s a lot of anxiety with the kids not knowing where they sit and where they belong.

And she thinks that any school that wants to get rid of the open-plan set-up should get funding to do it.

If the experience at Rangiora High is anything to go by, why wouldn't the Government spend some money fixing up this shambles?

Since Rangiora put in the walls and doors, attendance is up by 12%. Which principal Bruce Kearney puts down to “happier teachers, happier kids, and a happier school”.

And he is in no doubt that the Government needs to stump up with the money so all schools that want to benefit from this brilliant move by Erica Stanford, can.

I’m going further than that though.

I think the government is morally obliged to do it. Because even though it wasn't this particular government that forced modern learning environments on schools, it was still the government-of-the-day.

The current administration is now admitting that the experiment has failed. So there is no way it can say that but still expect kids already being taught in these battery farms to put up with it.

And there’s no way it can admit it was a cock-up and expect teachers to keep teaching in these places.

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