Architecture and Pedagogy @ Mårtensbro skola 2012-2015

Kristina Falkenstedt Headmaster at Mårtensbro skola

Espoo, Finland

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Architecture and pedagogy at Mårtensbro skola school in Espoo, Finland !Brief history of our school, Mårtensbro skola !The Mårtensbro skola school was founded in 1927 and was called ”Finno folkskola” at

the time.

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In 1971 the school moved into the then ”Sammalvuoren koulu” building and was called

”Stensvik svenska folkskola”. In 1977 due to a big school reform, the school got its name of

today; Mårtensbro skola. During the years 1995 thru 2012 the school was situated at

two different addresses; Rehtorinkuja and Ulappakatu.

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The new school building, housing a daycare center, preschool, primary school for grades

1-6 and some classes for grade 7-9 and afterschool care was ready to be moved into in

March 2012.

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! PHOTO BY TUOMAS UUSHEIMO !!

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The planning and implementation of the new Mårtensbro skola school building. !The planning and implementation of a new school of this magnitude was not an easy task.

There were many instances involved.

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The actual planning process !!

! PHOTO BY DECOPIC

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! PHOTO BY DECOPIC

!!!!One of the main focuses during the planning process was how would we manage to build a

school which architecture would support the new pedagogy of learning, where the main

focus is on the pupil actively seeking knowledge and the teacher functioning more as a

supervisor of the group.

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! PHOTO BY TUOMAS UUSHEIMO !!

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Pedagogy as the main planning objective !The school was to be built so that everybody could easily get to know each other, like in the

school canteen where really young daycare age children eat together with older primary

school pupils.

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! PHOTO BY TUOMAS UUSHEIMO !!

!The canteen in the old school was very small and dark so it was important already early on

in the planning stages to incorporate the school canteen in the plans as a central meeting

point, not only for lunch but also for school gatherings and plays. !!

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��� PHOTO BY TUOMAS UUSHEIMO !

It also offers the possibility to easily transform the area into a theater by opening up the

walls to the stage and turning the lunch area chairs to face the stage. We also have extra

chairs in big drawers under the stage which can easily be taken into use to accomodate

more viewers.

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PHOTO BY TUOMAS UUSHEIMO

Educational purposes with the planning of the house !One very important aspect while planning the house was to increase the visibility to all the

different spaces in the school for example by adding doors with windows between the

classroom to make teacher co-operation smoother. Also planning several smaller rooms so

that the teachers in the same grade can co-operate or divide pupils into smaller groups and

providing the class rooms with glass walls to make it possible for pupils to work outside the

classroom but still making it possible to maintain eye contact and the teacher to have an

overview of all pupils for safety reasons.

It was also of highest priority to plan a building that would support different learning styles

as well as possible. We wanted to make a new way of learning possible. Different needs and

combinations of auditory, visual or tactile styles to learn posed high expectations of the

new school building and making it suitable for all kinds of learning styles to achieve

maximum learning. We also wanted as much interdisciplinary teaching to be possible

where pupils of different ages learn to work together with the older pupils teaching the

younger pupils.

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PHOTO BY TUOMAS UUSHEIMO

Outdoor education !!

Outdoor education with oudoor educator/teacher Annika Olsen Nyberg

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!Security in a school !In Mårtensbro school we have a carefully crafted emergency plan that includes a detailed

action plan on how we should proceed if a sudden crisis or a dangerous situation emerges.

We have access to a crisis plan in a place where everyone in the staff knows where it is. We

have a carefully crafted evacuation plan, for example in case of a fire and the information

in the emergency plan in terms of our actions in various threatening situations as external

threats is confidential so I will not repeat them here, but we all know what to do in such a

situation. We have emergency buttons we can press which immediately activate door lock-

down, so we can seal off parts of the building to make the areas secure.

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Energy efficiency and environmental friendliness !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!The left panel provides hot water, the right panel electricity !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !

The wind conditions are measured constantly

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Conclusion of the project !- The amount of knowledge and facts are so huge today that it is impossible to learn

everything in school, however, we need to teach students to find facts independently. In

addition to factual knowledge, we also need to teach them different everyday skills that

they need in life.

!- We do not have any statistics that directly show the differences in the educational results,

but students are happy and feel good and have good learning results and have done well in

their future studies.

!- Making use of new teaching methods and modern technology in their teaching can be a

challenge for teachers in our school, because it prevents the teacher from still working with

old more traditional/familiar methods partly because of the property itself: glass walls and

doors, lack of blackboards and chalk, the decor, partly by mandatory joint planning once a

week, two teachers in the class at the same time, sharing of classes and groups, etc.

!- It may also be that parents question the new methods such as outdoor education or the

use of different learning styles.

!- We do not need to wait for the municipality/authority to build us a new schoolhouse for

us to change our educational philosophy. It is important to think about what kind of basic

proficiency / skills and competencies our children and adolescents need today and in the

future.

!- Changes are often experienced as difficult/annoying because the old way to do things

feels good and reliable. Therefore, the person or persons who will lead the change process

itself must know and believe strongly in what they do and let it be very visible to all the

others.

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A cosy reading area for the pupils !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shields created by the pupils adorning a corridor wall

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