Bruce Kearney: Rangiora High School principal on the Government scrapping open-plan classrooms

Open-plan classrooms will soon be a thing of the past, according to a new directive from the Government.

Education Minister Erica Stanford's announced plans to build all new classrooms with standardised designs.

Rangiora High School's already spent one and a half million dollars removing its open-plan style classes.

Principal Bruce Kearney says it ended up being distracting.

"They tend to be noisier, but it was also the combination of 60 kids, two teachers - the whole deal, really. It didn't really work out for us." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, the government says there will be no new
open planned barnyard classrooms built. Education Minister Erica Stanford made
of the announcement today. She says, these big open spaces
have been bad for kids and the Ministry has been
looking into it.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
So they've looked at eight thousand different learning spaces in
coming to this decision, and they've used noise monitors and
light monitors and all sorts of things. And the overwhelming
feedback from schools is that teachers do not like teaching
in these classrooms. Principals do not like having these classrooms.
And it is now our position that we will not
be building any more of them unless by specific request.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Right, So what about those have already got them? At
Angiora High School has spent one and a half million
dollars getting rid of its own open plan classrooms, and
the principal, Bruce Kenny, is with me now, Hi Bruce, Hi,
how are you doing good? Thank you? So they didn't
work for you? Why not?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, Well, for the exact same reasons there are the
Minister's talking about. Really they are the noisy will tend
to be noisier. But it was also the combination of
you know, sixty kids, two teachers. The whole deal really
didn't really work out for us.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Why would it? How many did you have? Why one
and a half million dollars to get rid of them?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, Well, we were early and we were probably at
the forefront of the thinking of that at the time.
This was this was pre me and so we had
one one building with twenty six classrooms and essentially no walls.
One process.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
So that again one building, twenty six classrooms, no walls.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, yeah, so we were quite out there.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
How many kids in there?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
We ran at about sort of four hundred and fifty
students and when we implemented that they were that was
pretty much our year nine cohort would go through that building. Wow, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Quite distracting four hundred and fifty kids one room.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well, I don't think it can't be, you know, not distracting,
you know, the noise. Whilst they say more people in there,
the noise gets absorbed, it doesn't really, it really didn't
affect that that way. That was certainly what the architects
used to tell us. It was pretty overwhelming. But I
think even more importantly, if I'm honest with you, you know,
the biggest problem that we had was our community lost

(02:14):
faith in what we were providing.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Clearly the government's seen the light on this, But the
question I have is how did we let it happen
in the first place? You know, you know, you said
this was before your time. There are plenty of educators
who thought this was a great idea.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well somebody obviously did, didn't they. And look, I'm gonna
be honest with you, I don't think it's a bad idea.
I think part of being in education and trying to
be at the forefront of education is that we try things.
What's a really bad idea is implementing something and then
not reviewing it to see if it actually works. I
think that's the real key where society and education sector

(02:56):
kind of lost its way. They didn't take the time
out to go is essentially.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Working appreciate time. Bruce Bruce Kenny, the Dunjorder High School principal.
They have reversed the open style barnyard classrooms there to
the tune of one point five million dollars.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
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Speaker 1 (03:16):
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