Say Hello to: Place Standard at Schools

An article from Architecture and Design Scotland about their time working with Our Lady of the Missions Primary School in East Renfrewshire with the Place Standard Tool.

In March we took Say Hello to Architecture to Our Lady of the Missions Primary School in East Renfrewshire as part of their World at Work week. Daniel McKendry, Programme Manager for Say Hello to Architecture, met with 3 separate groups of 40 primary 5 (aged 9) pupils (120 in total) and the teachers.

After outlining his professional role Daniel undertook a hands on workshop to introduce the Scottish Government’s Place Standard tool using the following stages:

The group of 40 was split into 4 groups around tables. On each table was a plan of the school shown at different scales. (1:500, 1:1250, 1:2500, and 1:10000) Corresponding aerial photographs, tracing paper and pens were provided.

Each group was asked to locate their school, the local high school and the nearby shopping street. They were then asked to locate their homes, parks and routes to school, as well as heavily trafficked areas and place where they felt less safe or welcomed.

The pupils were asked to move on after 10 minutes. This was repeated 3 times so that everyone could see their own place at each scale.

They were then given Lego to build models of their school, the local high school and the nearby shopping street on the plan that they ended up on. This reinforced the understanding of scale and proximity.

Daniel then introduced the Place Standard tool by going through the 14 question using age-appropriate language. The pupils and teachers then went out for a walk – in groups of 10 – around their school and filled in the chart/questionnaire, demonstrating great team work.

The groups returned to class and discussed the reasons for the varying responses, highlighting that certain issues are more important to different people but that listening to other people’s opinions was both important and interesting.

The teachers and a selection of pupils were then interviewed as part of our Talking Heads project and were asked what they had done, what they had learned and what they would like to do next from what they had learned.

We would love to work with other schools – if you want to get involved please contact us on[email protected] or check out our Say Hello to Architecture Resource packs.

Source: Architecture and Design Scotland