The development of school buildings is closely allied to the growth and expansion of the education system, and changes in the scope and method of teaching are directly reflected in the type of buildings provided for the purpose.
In the early days of the colonisation of New Zealand, education rested almost entirely in the hands of the churches. Finance was raised by the allocation of a proportion of the proceeds of the sale of land to the new immigrants. From 1853 the responsibility for primary education and the provision of school buildings was vested in the Provincial Governments, which in general administered education through education boards which they established in their respective provinces. With the abolition of the Provincial Governments in 1876, the financial responsibility was taken over by the Central Government, but the administration and the design and provision of primary school buildings remained in the hands of the education boards, provided for in the Education Act of 1877.
Soon after the arrival of the early settlers, schools were established wherever there were sufficient children and a teacher could be found; the accommodation was generally meagre and primitive. Classes were held in private houses or halls until such time as school buildings could be built. These early schools varied considerably in construction from “wattle and daub” to timber or stone buildings, but all were small, overcrowded, and dingy by present-day standards. Many schools consisted of one room of up to 20 ft long by 12 or 14 ft wide, and were considered as being adequate for from 30 to upwards of 50 pupils. The children were often taught in relays in order to accommodate as many as possible in the small space available. The children sat in rows in the classroom and were taught directly by the teacher, in contrast to the present-day methods by which the emphasis is on the children's learning from the teacher and by practical activity. This change in teaching method is reflected in the type of classroom provided in primary schools today. Until well into the present century both classrooms and schools tended to be small, although many comparatively large schools existed in the more heavily populated areas.
In the 1920s new approaches were made to school planning, notably of the Taranaki and Canterbury open air type, with very much larger windows for more light and ventilation. The standard size of classroom recommended at this time was, for all but the smallest schools, 624 sq. ft. (26 ft long by 24 ft wide), and this remains the basic minimum room size today.
During the period immediately following the Second World War, in order to provide buildings more quickly to cope with the increase in the school population and to overcome a shortage of new buildings due to the war years, a standard type of primary school plan, the Dominion Basic Plan, was adopted for the whole country. This plan consisted of a row of classrooms with store-rooms between, and a corridor on the south side with cloak and toilet rooms beyond. Rooms for the teaching staff were provided as links between groups of classrooms or at the end of a group.
In 1954 each education board developed its own standard type of school plan to suit the special needs of its area. All were based on the same premise that, as primary classes remained in their own classrooms for practically the whole day, corridors were redundant. Furthermore, because the new methods encouraged practical activities which required more space for teaching purposes, the areas of classroom, store-room and adjacent corridor were combined to form the present size classroom of 768 sq. ft. (32 ft by 24 ft). In 1956 the “white lines policy” was introduced, under which the freedom of responsibility for planning new school buildings within the two “white lines” of minimum standards of accommodation and maximum cost for each pupil to be accommodated was accepted by the education boards. The minimum area to be provided for each class was 760 sq. ft., with a minimum room size of 624 sq. ft.; many classrooms have been built with areas in excess of 800 sq. ft. within the cost laid down.
Intermediate schools are located in the more thickly populated areas to provide specialist facilities for standards 5 and 6 (Forms I and II), by concentrating these forms from several schools in the area into one school. The buildings consist of the standard primary classroom units with the addition of specialist rooms for woodwork, metalwork, homecraft, clothing, art and craft and nature study. An assembly hall is also included in the school complex.
District high schools, which are secondary departments attached to primary schools in country areas, and high schools, have existed in New Zealand from early times of European settlement. Many have grown from modest beginnings into some of the leading schools in New Zealand today. As with the primary schools, they have developed with the increase of population and the changing needs of the education system. From schools where the main curriculum was based on the “three Rs”, with the addition of some science and craft work, generally taught in small overcrowded classrooms, there have now appeared the multi-course post-primary schools of today with the specialist accommodation, teaching aids, equipment and facilities of modern times. Many of the older schools have developed individually, but approximately half of the post-primary schools in existence today have been established as new schools only during the last 20 years.
As was the case with the primary schools, standard post-primary school plans were prepared to meet the great increase in the school population in the period immediately following the Second World War. The first, known as the Naenae type school, was a two-storey building, of reinforced concrete construction up to first floor level and timber frame above, with the teaching rooms in long rows and with access from corridors at both levels. This was the first school fully planned as a complete entity with the incorporation of specialist facilities for the full range of subjects in the modern curriculum. It proved, however, slow and costly in construction for the large buildings programme looming ahead and was replaced by the Henderson type school of similar content but in single storey timber construction.
In 1954 as a result of a study of overseas methods, a new type of school was introduced, planned in separate blocks as self-contained units, each of six teaching rooms. The elimination of corridors resulted in a much quieter school in operation. The saving in cost of this type of school enabled an assembly hall to be constructed as well. The first of these schools was opened in 1957. Development of this type of school planning led to the introduction of two-storey blocks, each of 12 teaching rooms, so reducing the amount of movement of pupils between blocks and leading to a more compact group of buildings.
The changes in methods of teaching, as well as the rapid changes at present taking place in equipment and in audio-visual aids to teaching such as tape recorders and television, are having their impact on the design of school buildings. There is a greater need for flexibility in design to make the maximum use of these facilities, and to allow for an expanding school population. The development of the design of school buildings is a continuing process in harmony with the development of education and knowledge.
by Alan Peter Garnock-Jones, DIP.ARCH(LIV.), A.R.I.B.A., A.N.Z.I.A., Architectural Division, Ministry of Works.