Tim Grocott: Shirley Boys' High School Headmaster on the move to scrap open plan classrooms

Many principals are welcoming the Government's decision to scrap open plan classrooms as a no-brainer. 

Education Minister Erica Stanford says all new builds will have more traditional layouts, reversing the decision from John Key's government. 

Christchurch's Shirley Boys' High School's paid $800 thousand to transform its open plan classrooms to single cells. 

Headmaster Tim Grocott told Heather du Plessis Allan they noticed an immediate improvement. 

He says they're a secondary school teaching individual subjects, so individual classes for teachers is crucial. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Been another education revamp. The governments announced open plan classrooms
are gone and we're going back to single classes. At
Cheerley Boys High School, they spent eight hundred thousand dollars
changing their open plan spaces back to single cell rooms
after poor performance. And Tim Grocott is the headmaster and
with us now morning Tim.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh, good morning here that.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Why didn't it work for you guys?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I think for us we just found the distractions were
too great. It was too noisy, too much going on.
Boys struggle to focus on the learning that was in
front of them, and our teachers just found the same. Basically,
it was hard to keep the boys engaged in those areas.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Have you seen a turnaround since you put the walls
back up?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah? Absolutely. People are just much happier. You know, we
haven't had enough of an opportunity to sort of measure achievement,
but certainly we're seeing some really good engagement from the
boys and people just really happy to be in spaces.
Our teachers have just been able to set up their
own rooms. I've got a bit of ownership over their space,

(01:00):
look after it better. All of those sorts of things
have been really good, along with really positive teaching the
student relationships, you know, which is really key for us
in the boys school.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
I see that some schools are not entirely happy with this.
They still want some flexibility. They want to be able
to have the open plan. Why would a school want
open plan at all?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Look, I'm not one hundred percent sure why that would be.
I guess that the flexibility of how you use spaces
and doing different things. I guess that's what they're looking for.
If I if I think about our context, you know,
we're a secondary school, we teach individual subjects. Therefore, having

(01:44):
individual rooms to teach in those with one teacher is
absolutely crucial for us. Particularly with the way the curriculum
is developing, that's going to be even more crucial. So
that for us, that was just an absolute no brainer.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I mean, I can I know that boys really really
need to concentrate. Is it different at co ed schools
and girls.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Schools in terms of the classrooms? Yeah, how Look, there
will be a max I mean christ Church is probably
different because of the christ Church rebuilt. There will be
a mixture of spaces. But for schools that were designed
and built around that twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen period.

(02:26):
Most of those schools will have elements of modern learning.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
What I was asking Tim is I know that boys
need a single classroom to concentrate, right, They really need
to be able to not be distracted. What about girls?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
I think probably there is a difference, a slight difference,
but a difference between the way that boys and girls learn.
I think that in the teenage years, the girls certainly
have that stronger ability to concentrate and to focus on
the task in front of them. Boys need far more structure.
Girls are able to learn better independently. And what we're

(03:03):
finding is that the boy that structure that can be
provided in an individual room is really helpful. But having
said that, there will be a mixed ride across boys
and girls. There will be girls who would be loving
being in individual spaces as well.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, totally, Tim, really appreciate your time to look after yourself.
That's Tim Grocott, headmaster at Shirley Boys High School.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
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