The walls are coming down at St Stanislaus' College.
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In a move to accommodate an increase in student numbers and the need for more integrated and flexible learning spaces, classrooms at the school are being opened up, with the school making the bold move to remove walls between classrooms in several parts of the College.
The resulting spaces will enable Melissa Lang, Director of Quality Teaching and Learning, to see the outcomes of a four-year long project "Elevate" which looks at new pedagogical practices targeting high potential learners.
"At Stannies, our role as educators is to not only focus on our classroom and co-curricular teaching but to also be aware that we are teaching students lifelong learning skills for a future they are yet to navigate and discover," Mrs Lang said.
"Our approach to encouraging boys to write and to write well is to provide opportunities for visual, hands-on learning that allows for choice and creativity with clear frameworks and structures in place.
"It is critical that we as educators move away from the 'industrial education factory' of the past and instead identify the individual needs of the students we teach," she said.
With classrooms literally opened up, Mrs Lang said there will be two (or more) teachers in a room, who can bounce ideas off each other, while students can participate in group work more freely.
In addition to changing the physical space of the classrooms the College has also made changes to its time table to ensure subjects, for example English, are "blocked" together.
This means each year group cohort will do English at the same time, meaning students of varying ranges of ability can collaborate.
Mrs Lang said the project's impact on teaching will be to provide students with the skills and space to be flexible, creative and innovative.
Head of College, Lindsay Luck said the classrooms were a prototype which would continue to be tweaked to suits the needs of the College.
