Australia

case 11

The Reece Community School mission is to instill a love of learning in all students through an integrated project-based curriculum while recognizing and aiming to fulfill the learning needs of all members of the community. The plan for the Reece Campus was built around the creation of discrete 100-student small learning communities. One building on campus was designed in large structural bays specifically to be reconfigured for a variety of learning environments, from a single meeting of 500 people in the entire space to the division into smaller environments for distance learning programs, dance and music programs, and more long-term projects. Classrooms offer wireless computing and provide each student with their own individual workstation with lockable storage to support more independent learning. In addition, the school incorporates a diversity of settings and spaces to reflect different learning modalities of students.


case 12

The design of Canning Vale was guided by a number of explicit project principles de­ veloped by the school’s stakeholder community that included personalizing learning, supporting students with adult mentors and peer groups, environmental, project-based authentic learning, workplace learning experiences, and fostering smaller learning com­ munities. The grades 8—12 school is organized in family groupings of 16 students or less, each under the care of an advisor, with eight families making up one neighborhood and five neighborhoods making up the middle school community for a total capacity of 1,200 students in 146,000 square feet. Meeting places for each neighborhood or “corro­borees” (aboriginal term or athering places) have been carefully integrated into the de­ sign. A number of unique design elements were provided to encourage “unprogrammed” learning opportunities and cross-curricular collaboration. For instance, the bandstand opens to a learning street and cafeteria zone to allow for impromptu performances, the lecture theatre is flanked by a climbing wall, entrances to neighborhoods are paired with “making and testing” studios that are not curriculum-specific, and eco-gardens and a recreated wetland precinct were developed in collaboration with a local environmental group.