Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is the biggest single government investment in improving school buildings for over 50 years. The aim is to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England over a 10-15 year period.

But who is deciding how these schools are designed and built?

At the moment the answer is quite firmly, “not the teacher”. Of course, teachers don’t necessarily know about architectural and building issues, but they do have a real insight into how the way a school is built can affect the quality of teaching and learning that goes on inside.

At the heart of the matter of school design is the very simple issue of daylight. Despite all the changes to schooling in recent years, the prime function of schools takes place during daylight hours, and it is the way the school buildings are designed and built in relation to daylight that, more than any other aspect of the building, affects the teaching and learning that happens inside.

Put at its simplest, too much daylight and everyone complains about heat and glare; too little and the rooms feel gloomy and dull. Both the type and source of the light affect the way pupils and students respond.

Despite this being an effect that most teachers will acknowledge, the issue was generally ignored by school planners until the very end of the 20th century when the California Board for Energy Efficiency decided to investigate school lighting and in doing so produced the definitive study on the subject.

They analysed test scores from 21,000 students and day lighting conditions in over 2000 classrooms. Controlling for all other conditions, they found that students with a well-designed skylight in their classroom (one that diffused the daylight throughout the room and which allowed teachers to control the amount of daylight entering the room) improved 20% faster than those students in rooms without a skylight.

This supports the intuitive knowledge of teachers – that if you avoid the glare and distractions that arise from large eye-level windows, and if you also avoid the side-effects of limited natural lighting, you improve the quality and quantity of teaching and learning.

Of course, one of the problems with importing such findings into the UK is that there is always a natural reluctance to accept that what happens in California is going to be relevant to Cardiff and Cleethorpes.

To overcome this, Conport, the UK builders of Northlight studios and classrooms, undertook a study of the effects noted by students and teachers who worked in skylit buildings at the Arts Institute, Bournemouth.

The survey, restricted as it was to one location, cannot compare directly with the huge state-funded Californian study, but it is nonetheless interesting to note that once again the results suggested a strong preference for Northlight-type skylight rooms. Over 50% of the respondents in the Bournemouth study found that computer screens displayed graphics, photos and colour better than in ordinary classrooms. Over 80% found it easier to see and use whiteboards and OHPs while over 70% of students said they could concentrate better in a skylit room.

Conport is now urging the government to consider incorporating issues of teaching and learning into the designs being produced for the schools of the future programme.