Over the last 18 months the Learning Environments Professional Learning Community (PLC) has been using the Lindfield Design Thinking process to inquire into the learning environments we have at our school and how they can be enhanced to continually improve the learning of our boys.

The group’s mission is to develop a culture and learning spaces that are engaging, functional, inclusive and nurture the curious mind and to reach this goal we have consulted students and staff and have engaged in extensive research reviews and school visits through the year.

In working towards our mission the group has had the privilege to work with Russel and Sasha Koskela (www.koskela.com.au) who are prominent designers in this space and have Anders and Mika at our school. We have been very privileged to have their generous support through ongoing consultation, sharing of experience and the actual designing of furniture pieces.

The first of these furniture pieces has the primary goal of creating unity with the surrounding natural environment whilst decluttering the space by providing an organisational structure for use by students and staff. This prototype can be seen in the Year 5B classroom and on the images in this article. This first piece was made possible by the generous support of the Lindfield P&F who funded the creation and installation of this piece.

Moving forward the College will be installing similar pieces in the Year 5W, Year 6B and Year 6W classrooms over the coming holiday break and in the coming years we look forward to a gradual change in classroom desks and chairs as we move towards our desired future state of truly flexible classrooms.

In addition to the physical components of learning environments the PLC is also exploring and implementing a ranging of pedagogical changes to further enhance the learning of our students.

Learning Environments Professional Learning Community – (Pascal Czerwenka, Carol Peterson, Philip Trethewey, Eva Angel, Patricia Kazacos)