New, improved ....

A spin-off from my judging of the school talent contest t'other night was a visit to the classroom of one of my erstwhile colleagues in the English Department. I've barely been in the building since our abortive attempt to hold a choir practice in the music department - abortive because of the combination of bagpipes and poor soundproofing - so I was interested to see what kind of room I might have ended up in had I stayed on till the new building was finished.

I'm really glad I didn't. Really glad. My last fifteen or so years in Dunoon Grammar were spent in a room in what was then "the new bit", and I always regarded it as a terrible let-down after the spacious top-floor room I'd been evicted from when the MFL dept wanted it back. However, this new room had it beat for lack of amenity.

For a start, it was still smaller, by about a couple of feet either way. And there were no cupboards. No built-in cupboards - and no space in which to stand one. An arrangement of four flimsy shelves on a back wall - about 4' long, I'd say - held tottering piles of the folders necessary to hold the coursework for five yeargroups. I used to keep the folios carefully stashed away, so that precious work was not open for accident or worse, but there is now no provision for this. My pal was contemplating acquiring some boxes to keep them in: I suggested wine crates.

Ah, I hear you say, but what about the shiny new techy stuff? Who needs folders when all the work could be held electronically? Well, quite. The techy stuff consisted of a handful of the laptops which used to travel round the department in two trolleys, plus a distinctly elderly desktop machine of the large, fawn variety. These were ranged along a shelf at the back of the room, behind the desks. The power supply for this lot came via a cable which originated below the whiteboard at the front of the room, was sellotaped to the wall till it reached the ceiling where it was fed above the tiles, re-emerging (with more sellotape) above the rear shelf.

The only improvement I could see was a ceiling-mounted projector. Otherwise the space was a cramped, over-heated, under-equipped box - and apparently the 28 Higher students who use the room fill it to bursting point. I'd hate to have to work there. My pal is a tidy sort of bloke, but anyone with less than a submariner's ability to stow their gear would find it a nightmare.

Why do these things happen? I hope my friend gets his wine crates - perhaps at least one of them should be full.

Travel Lodge classroom?

Paid my first visit to the new Dunoon Grammar School last night. Choir practice night. We've had one rehearsal so far this term, but we had that one in Holy Trinity church - an airy space, to put it politely, with a great acoustic and only the twilight birds to disturb us. The school music department ticks none of these boxes. The moment the automatic doors opened to admit us, before we'd even spoken to the polite (and new) security guard, we knew we were doomed.

DGS is a piping school. It has a proud tradition of excellence in piping, and like every excellent band they rehearse. They were rehearsing last night. This never used to matter, as they practised in another building on the school site. Now they're in with the rest of music. What would a sensible school designer do? Do I hear a small voice muttering about soundproofing? Whoever put this one-size-fits all building together obviously paid no heed to the voice of the former PT Music (who happens to be Mr B) when he raised the need for soundproofing in the department, and the pipes sounded out loud and clear no matter how many doors we closed.

Because the piping tutor is a seriously decent spud, a compromise was reached. We shut ourselves in the room with the grand piano and got on with it, trying to ignore the now more distant pipes (remember that poem about the pipes at Lucknow?) But we couldn't ignore the glaring lights bouncing off the white walls, the fitted carpet which deadened every note we sang, the heat and the claustrophobia-inducing low ceiling. The room was at least half the size of the one we had used previously (now demolished) and the whole experience was stressful and unsatisfying.

So what makes a good classroom? I know music rooms have their own peculiar needs, and I know too that at least one former colleague is enjoying her modern languages classroom (though I suspect this has much to do with the fact that it faces north and she no longer has to fry in the heat of her old, south-facing room). But if I were still teaching, I'd be looking for an airy space with controllable heating, adequate windows which I could open, glare-free lighting as close to natural light as possible and a walk-in cupboard to reduce the sensation of clutter brought about by open shelving. Oh, and I'd prefer not to have unpainted MDF fitted furnishings, and I'd like sufficient space to change the layout of the room to suit the occasion. I'd also like a slight resonance to make my job easier, and rely on good classroom management to avoid undue pupil noise, rather than the acousti-booth effect.

Did I notice anything I liked? Yes. There were loads of power points as well as equipment for Powerpoint or similar presentations. I just hope they have the computers to plug into them. But we're looking for somewhere else to hold choir practice in.