After the school\u2019s original buildings burned down in 2020, it was selected for the DfE\u2019s GenZero pilot to construct schools \u2018working with nature \u2026 for health, wellbeing and the environment\u2019. The site has been reoriented, relandscaped and built to low embodied and operational carbon specifications using standardised timber modules and PV panels. Last month, Tilbury Douglas and the DfE hosted a symposium to share lessons from the school\u2019s first year of life.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n St Mary\u2019s most notable biophilic feature is that it massively expands outdoor access. In the UK, only 24 per cent of schools provide daily opportunities for pupils to experience nature, dropping to 18 per cent in more deprived areas. Here, every classroom opens outwards: the school\u2019s five single-storey timber blocks connect through winding paths and a covered outdoor canopy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Wherever you are, you\u2019ve always got sight of some greenery,\u2019 says Hawkins\\Brown\u2019s project architect David Brook, who is also technical director. \u2018Rather than an efficient footprint with internal circulation, most of that circulation is outside \u2026 kids get a little bit of fresh air when they go back and forth.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are no fenced-off \u2018nature areas\u2019, while service routes that previously cut off access to trees have been diverted. The outdoor amphitheatre and outdoor Wi-Fi spots facilitate external\u00a0lessons.<\/p>\n Speaking at the symposium, Miles Richardson, a leading expert on connections with nature, said: \u2018We have busy lives and there is a battle for attention.\u2019 Architects need to be \u2018designing a place or space so that it prompts engagement\u2019.<\/p>\n In St Mary\u2019s, the grounds are divided into a variety of different areas: busy playing fields, a meditation space, functional hard surfaces (excellent for dance routines, apparently), private forest, and sheltered courtyards.<\/p>\n Headteacher Amanda Greaves tells the symposium that she thinks the most impactful change is that children now \u2018choose where they want to go in their play and lunch breaks\u2019, creating their own ways of interacting with their surroundings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For Brook, spaces with \u2018a bit more identity\u2019 give children \u2018options and preferences, and then, because each one of those [spaces] can be characterised, they will change people\u2019s\u00a0decisions\u2019.<\/p>\n While spaces might initially look conventional, the same ecosystem-esque flexibility and flow applies within the buildings. The layout is organic \u2013 the five school blocks are like organs around the central covered spine. Many of the walls and desks are whiteboards and some classroom furniture is on wheels so pupils can move and write dynamically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even the services are exposed or wall-mounted. This was originally intended to help maintenance and reduce embodied carbon but, in practice, also reinforces the sense of the building as a moving, living system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some children have apparently picked up on this, wanting to understand the pipework labelling. According to Brook, this \u2018speaks to those biophilic principles of being in harmony with your natural world, rather than existing in a separate plane independent of it, where we sort of lose that\u00a0context.\u2019<\/p>\n An even deeper immersion with ecosystems comes from active learning. St Mary\u2019s has a gardening club, which prioritises access to students who don\u2019t have gardens at home. While this isn\u2019t exactly radical, Greaves says they plan to involve parents too. Swales around the site can be used to teach children about blue habitats while low paved walls and brambled areas provide pupils with \u2018positive and manageable risks\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is reminiscent of the Forest Schools philosophy, which holds that wilder green spaces are the most fertile places for young people to explore and learn for themselves. Brook notes that there is also an environmental educational component to risk. \u2018Having some spiky bushes is quite useful,\u2019 he says, \u2018because then we learn that we shouldn\u2019t just be running riot through the\u00a0landscaping.\u2019<\/p>\n Measuring the overall \u2018success\u2019 of biophilia is tricky. Many formal frameworks are dissatisfying, prioritising aesthetics and passive allusions to ecological features, such as\u00a0 <\/span>shapes and colours. It is to St Mary\u2019s credit that the experience of the pupils is centre stage instead. Its blocky buildings may not \u2018mimic shells and leaves\u2019 but they are having an impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to pupil surveys by University of Derby PhD student Sophie Rickard (also responsible for the mapping exercise), pupils have shown a \u2018sustained increase in life satisfaction post-move\u2019, and their reading and mathematics scores have risen. The school also seems to be having a calming effect. The teachers allow \u2018stressed and overwhelmed\u2019 children, many of whom have chaotic home environments, to ask to go outside, which academics interpret as them using eco-systems to self-regulate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I like these big trees,\u2019 one child reported. \u2018They survived the fire and that gives me hope that if you are ill, you can think about that big tree that survived.\u2019 The findings add to a wealth of evidence that natural systems are crucial for children\u2019s health and development.<\/p>\n Another consideration is the health of ecosystems themselves. Last September, a major compendium of international evidence showed conclusively that \u2018the view that humans are separate from and superior to nature and that nature comprises objects for humans to use as resources\u2019 is one of the three main causes of the staggering levels of biodiversity loss worldwide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Shifting to a more reciprocal relationship is quite literally life or death; we cannot use biophilic principles only to plunder nature for its productivity or wellbeing benefits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In St Mary\u2019s, a link is emerging: academics say they have seen in pupils a \u2018small but sustained increase in nature connectedness\u2019, \u2018a continued increase in pro-conservation behaviour\u2019 and \u2018stronger environmental perceptions\u00a0scores\u2019.<\/p>\n St Mary\u2019s can\u2019t be replicated everywhere. It is a new build, in a large, open site peopled by young children with structured opportunities to go outside and learn. But there have been transferable successes here. The diversity of St Mary\u2019s outdoor spaces, its blurred boundary between covered and open areas, and the opportunities it provides to directly engage people with their surroundings are all steps towards a more reciprocal type of architecture.<\/p>\n At the symposium, the DfE revealed it had begun a feasibility study for a biophilic secondary school down the road, suggesting that the (unspecified) cost uplift of delivering this pioneering new school has not deterred further exploration. The department also plans to include lessons from St Mary\u2019s and other pilot schools in design guides, including refurbishment guides, which will be published later this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Brook wants the project to \u2018enshrine a higher standard that we should be working towards.\u2019 Let\u2019s hope so. Thousands of UK schools are overdue major safety and sustainability upgrades. What an unmissable opportunity to drop the greenwashing, and start to repair human and ecological connections at scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When pupils at St Mary\u2019s Voluntary Catholic Academy, Derby, were asked to photograph where they would most like to have their lessons, they all took pictures of outdoor spaces: the amphitheatre, forested areas or gardening club shelter. Asked what made them feel calm in their classrooms, they photographed the windows. In a mapping exercise (see …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17071,"featured_media":778645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[681],"tags":[99622,45750,1278,4438,2605],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/13140620\/Biophilic-school-mapping.webp\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/13140736\/Tilbury-Douglas-St-Marys-Symposium-20.2.25-1024x683.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/13140851\/St-Marys-classroom-1024x683.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/13141243\/St_Marys_3-PC-Matthew-Ling-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.emap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/13141349\/St-Marys-pupils-1024x683.webp\")
<\/p>\n