Once hailed as the future of education, the cavernous classrooms are finally being scrapped after years of complaints, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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End of the open-plan era
The Ministry of Education will no longer build open-plan classrooms, education minister Erica Stanford announced yesterday, calling time on a once-fashionable approach to teaching that critics say has failed to deliver. Open-plan classrooms, also known as modern or flexible learning environments, were rolled out from 2011 under then-education minister, National’s Hekia Parata. Designed to foster collaboration and student-led learning, the model typically removed internal walls between classrooms and grouped students in large, open areas. But from the beginning, many teachers and principals raised concerns about noise, distraction and the classrooms’ impact on behavioural issues. Now, after years of pushback, the government has confirmed all new classrooms will return to standard designs with the flexibility to open or close spaces as needed.
The Christchurch experiment
As Cate Macintosh reported last month in The Press (paywalled), Christchurch schools were at the vanguard – often unwillingly – of the open-plan movement, with many schools rebuilt post-earthquake according to the then-trendy principles of modern learning. Now they are among the most vocal in rejecting them. Rangiora High School spent $1.5 million retrofitting walls into its sprawling 3185m² open space. Shirley Boys’ High spent $800,000; Avonside Girls’ spent $60,000 on largely ineffectual acoustic dividers and screens. “It was sort of the emperor’s new clothes,” says Avonside Girls’ principal Catherine Law of the open-plan trend. “Everyone went ‘21st century learning’, ‘modern environments’, ‘no knowledge’, and nobody was prepared to say, ‘but that’s not good teaching and learning’.”
Now the tide has changed – but retrofits are expensive, and schools operating under public-private partnerships face additional barriers to making changes, Macintosh writes. In an era of fiscal restraint, many principals are asking how the government plans to help schools convert spaces they never wanted in the first place.
The noise annoys
There’s no shortage of evidence showing what went wrong. Research has highlighted the negative impact of noise and distraction on learning, particularly for neurodiverse students. “Nobody can learn, least of all these kids for whom education means everything to their future independence, when they’re freaked out by their environment,” writes Australian former principal Adam Voigt, who once championed open-plan spaces but now calls them a failure. Studies cited in Ed Design Magazine show that noise in open classrooms can reduce speech perception by up to 75% for students sitting at the back of the room. Children with ADHD, autism or sensory sensitivities are disproportionately affected by this lack of structure and quiet. Teachers, too, have struggled with classroom management and identifying students who need extra help in cavernous, shared teaching spaces.
Broader questions about modern education styles
Open-plan classrooms are just one element of the “modern learning environment” movement that took hold in the 2010s, alongside the introduction of student-led inquiry projects, cross-disciplinary teaching and the widespread use of digital devices. As the Herald’s Simon Collins reported in a deep dive into the issue six years ago, teachers’ roles have shifted from “the sage on the stage” to “the guide on the side”, helping students take ownership of their learning. But as New Zealand’s international rankings in literacy and numeracy declined, critics including the NZ Initiative began to question whether innovation had come at the cost of educational outcomes.
Some parents and teachers remain enthusiastic about the flexibility and engagement that modern spaces can offer, especially when used selectively. Still, reviews have found little empirical evidence that open-plan designs improve learning. With this week’s announcement, the tide has definitively turned – and the next challenge will be what to do with the thousands of students still learning in spaces built on a now-abandoned idea.