Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Lynda Stuart: Auckland's May Road Primary School Principal on government ditching open plan classrooms

Transcript

Lynda Stuart: Auckland's May Road Primary School Principal on government ditching open plan classrooms · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Now, the government's ditching open planning classrooms, much to the
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  Speaker 1: relief of many teachers and kids and parents. Many schools
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  Speaker 1: have already spent thousands to revert back to single cell rooms.
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  Speaker 1: The Education Minister Erica Stanford reckons the big open spaces
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  Speaker 1: have had a negative effect on kids learning. New classrooms
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  Speaker 1: will be built using standard designs, just like classrooms have
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  Speaker 1: always been in the past, and will allow for flexibility
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  Speaker 1: when needed. That's called a sliding door. Linda Stewart is
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  Speaker 1: a principal at Mayroe Primary in West Auckland and joins me.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Hello, Linda, Morena Andrew.
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  Speaker 1: Do you like open classrooms or.
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  Speaker 2: A d not. Well, it's funny that you should ask
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  Speaker 2: me that, because today I have the pleasure of hosting
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  Speaker 2: people through our innovative learning environment. It's one year since
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  Speaker 2: we moved into our new classroom and.
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  Speaker 1: We love it and it's open.
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  Speaker 2: It is so it's really complex, isn't it? This whole
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  Speaker 2: issue because people talk about open classrooms, and I've heard
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  Speaker 2: people talking about barns. Ours is an innovative learning environment,
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  Speaker 2: was a purposeful design for children's learning. We took teachers
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  Speaker 2: and the community and our children on a journey over
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  Speaker 2: at least two years to really design a classrooms that
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  Speaker 2: were really fit for purpose and future focused. So when
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  Speaker 2: we talk about just putting sliding doors into an area,
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  Speaker 2: that is not what teaching and learning is all about.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that we're getting into a conversation that
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  Speaker 2: is being very binary around this, around do you like
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  Speaker 2: them or don't you like them? Actually, the number one
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  Speaker 2: factor that affects children's learning is the quality of the
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  Speaker 2: teaching that goes on in the classroom. Where you've thought
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  Speaker 2: about those children who have neurodiversity, who need the space
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  Speaker 2: to move, where you've thought about all of those different
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  Speaker 2: things that children will need, and you've had your children
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  Speaker 2: in mind, and you've designed a learning environment for them.
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  Speaker 2: It works well. And that's what we see. Intentional design
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  Speaker 2: has worked well for our children. Yes, we can close
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  Speaker 2: off areas if we need to or not.
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  Speaker 1: Well, what's the trick? Then? What is the trick? Because
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  Speaker 1: I've had kids in an open classroom and they've said
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  Speaker 1: it's noisy as all hell. You know, and we've had many,
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  Speaker 1: many reports about this is it can be very very
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  Speaker 1: distracting and very hard for a teacher to command the
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  Speaker 1: attention of twenty kids when there's another sixty kids who
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  Speaker 1: are doing something completely different right next door. So what's
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  Speaker 1: your trick.
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  Speaker 2: The trick is the intentional design where you think about
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  Speaker 2: actually the activities that children take part in during the day. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: if you put children together and you haven't had that thinking,
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  Speaker 2: and you haven't had worked with your teachers around the
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  Speaker 2: effect of pedagogy, then then it can be. It can
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  Speaker 2: be tricky. But in our give me.
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  Speaker 1: Give me a specific for instance, the spill of noise
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  Speaker 1: from teaching cells, from one teaching cell to another. How
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  Speaker 1: do you mitigate that in an open classroom at Mays Road.
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  Speaker 2: So if you were to come into our classroom, you
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't hear a lot of noise at all. What you
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  Speaker 2: would see is you would see children who are purposely
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  Speaker 2: engaged in their learning. You would see teachers and learning
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  Speaker 2: assistants working alongside children in different parts of the building.
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  Speaker 2: You would see some children involved in workshopping with a teacher.
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  Speaker 2: You would see other children involved in independent activities. You
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  Speaker 2: might see a child who is working to the side
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  Speaker 2: with a learning assistant because that's what they need.
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  Speaker 1: How much how much did you with a new classroom cost?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it's not one classroom. It was fifteen classrooms, and
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  Speaker 2: I think it was around twelve million something around that.
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  Speaker 1: Would it have been cheaper to make twelve single cells well.
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  Speaker 2: With the work that we have done before, I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that, Andrew. I think that the
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  Speaker 2: real question is what is the pedagogical practice that is
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  Speaker 2: happening in our classrooms. That's the difference for kids, And
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  Speaker 2: this conversation takes us away from some of the real
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  Speaker 2: issues that I think are facing education at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Linda Stewart's Linda Stewart, thank you so much for fighting
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  Speaker 1: your corner. We're going to have to go, and I
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  Speaker 1: thank you for your time today. For more from earlier
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  Speaker 1: edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it
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  Speaker 1: Be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.