Newham College of Further Education, London

Background & Context

Newham is one of the largest FE colleges in London and in the top 10 sized FE colleges in the country. The East Ham site is of 1960s construction and Stratford is a mishmash of buildings from the early 20th Century right through to construction in 2006.

The pedagogic origin of the project comes from the college's own internal quality assurance processes on teaching and learning. The desire was to move away from teachers adopting a straight didactic approach and develop more interactivity in teaching and learning with a learning activity areas approach.

The classrooms currently designed for both campuses are c.100-150 m². East Ham is a longer narrower room (3 classrooms knocked into one) and Stratford is a square room (part of the former college dining room). At East Ham the classroom is on the fifth floor of a seven storey building. At Stratford it's within the grounds of the college, the dining room is centrally linked to teaching blocks and it's right in the centre of the college.

The concept is that the centre of the room, which is almost encased in a floor to ceiling glass wall, is a group learning zone and each of the four corners of the room is a different style of learning from self-research, from printed materials, through to PC based research, through to small discussion areas etc.

It moves away from the notion of a single lecturer in a classroom with a single group. There could be up to 40 or 50 learners spread across the space. There will be more than one member of staff there but it may be a lecturer as the lead facilitator of the teaching and learning and assisted by student learning advisers who are learning support staff so it would lean towards a team teaching approach.

The furniture is high quality furniture that allows the whole area to feel different from traditional college learning environments.

The notion is a multi-activity concept of promoting learning. In the centre space there may be a short lecture taking place. In different corners there could be groups breaking out into PC based research or supported learning. It is wholly wired up for web-based learning throughout the facility and there are cupboards installed in other parts of the area that will contain materials such as text books, videos or CD ROMs etc.

Because of the physical layout of the room and the use of floor to ceiling glass screens, which are curved, there can be sound separation between the areas and at any one point there could be 5 members of teaching and learning staff operating in the room.

The principle behind the concept classrooms was to get away from teachers adopting a straight didactic approach even when there was information and learning technology in the classroom such as interactive whiteboards and multimedia projectors. The present mode of teaching is still very much the teacher standing at the front of the class talking forth with not enough interactivity in the teaching and learning. So the concept is to adopt more of a learning activity areas approach.

Underpinning what they want to achieve in promoting a different approach to teaching and learning is a 'wow factor' i.e. that the learner walks into the classroom and is excited, stimulated and invigorated in their learning. This is driven through in the colour schemes and the materials so it's not just about the furniture that's been installed, it's new flooring, new lighting, modern bright colour schemes including fabrics on the walls the use of these glass screens, the use of high tech IT equipment and right down to the fish tank. In terms of green issues, sustainability plays a major part so there is a lot of wood instead of using metals, all the fabrics can be recycled and there are no plastics. All light fittings are low energy light fittings and heating is down to a bare minimum because the room is well insulated.