A child's eye view of primary school built environments

Barrett, PS; Zhang, Y; Barrett, LC

Abstract

This article endeavours to make explicit the perspective of primary school pupils' on their likes, dislikes and wishes in relation to the built school environments they experience. Relevant findings in the literature are reviewed and the main themes summarized. The design of a study covering 127 pupils across two very different UK primary schools is described. The findings from an open-ended, investigator administered, questionnaire are summarized in some detail. These are then discussed in the context of the literature. It is found that, surprisingly, maintaining basic environmental factors within acceptable ranges do not figure at all in the responses of the pupils' to the open-ended questionnaire prompts. However, this is not the case for patently malfunctioning aspects such as creaky windows that impact more directly. A dominant aspect of school layout seems to be sheer size – bigger would be better. But the unpleasantness of ‘hard’ surfaces, such as stairs and flooring are also mentioned and are a reminder of how these quite small people experience the school environment very directly. Mention is made of opportunities for personalization (e.g. displays), good information and communication technology provision and control, but the desire for abundant useable outdoor space figured very prominently and is probably the most consistent aspect of the surveys.

Citation

Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., & Barrett, L. (2011). A child's eye view of primary school built environments. Intelligent Buildings International, 3(2), 107-123

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Feb 2, 2012
• Journal: Intelligent Buildings International
• Print ISSN: 1750-8975
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 107-123
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17508975.2011.582315