Pupils build up better results if they're out of crumbling schools

The aim was simple, to discover whether the fabric of school buildings has any effect on pupil performance and their attitudes towards education.

Two schools in South Yorkshire were selected. They were both similar in size and drew students from comparable catchment areas. The only difference was one had been newly built and remodelled under Labour's Building Schools for the Future initiative. The other was then on the waiting list and in desperate need of repair. With the scheme recently scrapped by the coalition Government, Dr Price's findings have just taken on greater significance.

"It all began with a chance conversation with a colleague about the increasing importance which was being put on the design of educational spaces and the complete absence of any research which had asked

pupils for their views," says Dr Price, professor of facilities management in Sheffield Hallam University's business school. "We started quite simply by asking pupils to take us on a tour of their school. In the old school, some of the problems were very obvious. There was mould on the walls, paint was peeling in many of the classrooms and one set of toilets were flooded. In fact, they were so bad, girls avoided using them all day if possible.

"Elsewhere, courtyards, in need of repaving, had been closed off, there was graffiti which hadn't been removed and some complained of the sheer amount of dust."

Not everything was perfect in the new school, which had opened its doors four years previously. There was still a lack of much-needed communal space, but Prof Price reckoned in terms of design, it was about 90 per cent of the way there.

Unsurprisingly, the pupils in the old school didn't think much of the crumbling walls, but a survey of the students which followed the initial tour was more revelatory.

"Both schools used interactive whiteboards," says Dr Price. "However, in the school in need of repair, pupils saw them as a waste of money, while in the new school, technology was embraced. When we began to look through the results of the survey, it was those kind of responses which leapt out. In the old school, pupils also said the stress levels of

teachers was directly affected by the classrooms in which they taught."

Last week, more than 700 schools, earmarked for redevelopment under BSF, were told the plans would not now go ahead. The Government pointed to what it described as "massive overspends, tragic delays and botched construction" and said in a time when all departments need to cut back, it simply couldn't justify the amount of money the previous administration had poured into bricks and mortar.

However, with critics of the decision refusing to go away quietly, the million dollar question remains – do new buildings mean better exam results?

"It's quite a difficult to pin down, but certainly there did seem to be a relationship between good buildings and achievement," says Dr Price. "The interesting thing was that not only was there an improvement in GCSE and A-levels when the new school opened, but when the old school, which had an equally inspirational headteacher, announced that it was going to be modernised there was a similar rise.

"When heads are faced with a choice between text books and repairing a bit of plaster, they are always going to choose the books. I can understand that, but the fabric of a building would seem to me to be incredibly important. As one pupil put it, 'You don't feel like trying hard in a building that is not particularly nice visually'."

Dr Price's survey has now been rolled out to other schools and as the Government tries to piece together its future plans for the country's

education system, he says, it could do worse than take a look at his original study.

"It is certainly true that the BSF programme was incredibly bureaucratic and if whatever it is replaced by simplifies the

whole process then that will be a good thing," he says. "The original guidelines were incredibly inflexible and while some schools were

rebuilt, the end result was often quite far removed from the original designs.

"So many things influence a child's education, from the quality of teachers to the support they get at home, but the importance of the buildings and classrooms which they are taught shouldn't be ignored."