How to improve your learning environment

With help from the Planning Learning Spaces in Practice Framework

It’s time for a rethink

Traditional learning spaces no longer meet the needs for 21st century learning.
We understand the demands on you and your teaching space. Using our proprietary tools we guide schools – in the UK and overseas – through a reflective process, building the link between curriculum and design via a structured framework.

Focusing on your school’s vision, values and ethos, the process helps translate learning behaviours and activities into learning space design principles, enabling you to create new, or refurbish existing, spaces that actively support your learning goals.

Reimagine your learning space

The process builds consensus throughout the teaching staff and the wider school community to support sustained change, empowering schools to be creators of a new, ongoing relationship between pedagogy and space.

The project is ideal for schools wanting to refurbish existing learning environments or design new spaces that actively support their learning goals.

We will guide you

The Planning Learning Spaces in Practice Design Framework helps schools to translate their educational vision into learning space design principles. Schools are guided through a reflective process, building the link between curriculum and design through a structured framework. We work with lead staff and other appropriate stakeholders through a series of workshops, which can be delivered online or in person.

Steps in the process

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Your plan, your outcome

Years of teaching experience

See how we helped one school transform their learning space. The teachers explain the benefits of their new environment.

" This has been a fantastic experience. The framework allowed us to strip back everything we had thought about the learning environment, and made us think what our main goals and intent were. From there, we built up a plan to achieve this and what we wanted the children to gain from the experience. Overall my way of teaching has adapted and I now think of my learning space as different zones that allow learning to happen in various ways. "

>Emma Norman- Year 4 Teacher at Trumpington Park Primary School.

Our Kura-School has embraced the PLS framework in order to prepare for transitioning to our new school later this year. The process has allowed for our staff to authentically share their ideas about their current learning challenges and how might we plan for next steps/solutions. I would strongly encourage any school undertaking a new build to review and participate in the PLS process.

– Lou Reddy (Headteacher) at Wesley Primary School, New Zealand

It has been an absolute pleasure working with Bhavini and Terry. They have taken the time to listen to the school's needs through conversations with governors, staff and the ever-important student voice. Their drive to create innovative and exciting learning spaces for all is evident, from conception through the design process. We are very excited to continue this journey with them to develop the school learning spaces further.'

– Tamaryn Yartu (Headteacher) at Gesher School, London.

About us

The Planning Learning Spaces in Practice Framework has come from the team behind the best-selling book ‘Planning Learning Spaces’ which brought together educationalists and innovative school architects to pool their collective expertise and inspire the design of more intelligent learning spaces.

The book shows the importance of understanding the intended learning and teaching approach before thinking about the physical design of schools and classrooms, while the framework enables teachers and school staff to apply the same principles to their existing spaces to make tangible improvement to student outcomes.

Terry White

Project Director, Co-Author of PLS and Chairman of a4le

Bhavini Pandya

Project Director and Gratnells Learning Rooms Leader

Planning Learning Spaces

The framework has been developed by the team behind the book.

Take the first step towards planning your learning space

Enquire now