SCHOOL BUILDINGS have many distinctive features and, although they are labelled as commercial premises, there are fire safety issues that are unusual and also unlikely to be tolerated in most business premises. Therefore, managing fire safety in schools can present some interesting challenges, in particular around the use of circulation and corridor spaces.
 
An area schools can struggle with is display and resource storage with free access for pupils. Display in schools is very important and vital for the creation of exciting play and learning spaces. Almost all school resources will be combustible and often highly flammable, involving paper, cardboard, textiles and plastics – which are frequently mixed with various lighting effects. 
 
The extent of the issue is also age related, with infant and nursery settings having more and often larger display and higher levels of combustible resources than older age groups. Although secondary schools tend to have less ambitious and wall-to-wall display, they are not exempt. Art, design and technology can all produce large amounts of combustible display and project work. 
 
One amazing and ambitious project in a secondary school art room replicated parts of the paintings from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican on paper and fixed them to the classroom ceiling. This was well executed and wonderful to view, but extended right up to, and wrapped around, the light fittings – which were not in good condition.
 
Another project, in a primary school, was based on the forest, so part of the display for this was a large floor-to-ceiling painting of trees, shrubs and grass to depict the forest in the corridor outside the classrooms. The branches of the trees, and therefore the display, spread across the ceiling to create a tree canopy – a great deal of work and wonderful to experience, but completely in the wrong place.
 
Key factors
 
Schools vary considerably and the following are some of the important factors that can impact on the management of fire safety:
 
Age and design
School building stock covers well over 250 years, with some premises even as old as the 16th century; and school premises are often a conglomeration of different layouts and architectural styles.
 
Building type
To cope with rising school numbers, a large building programme took place from the 1950s into the early 1970s. Some schools remain little changed since that original construction, but a large majority have been extended over the intervening years, with some tending to add an extension every decade since. This piecemeal development produces a broad range of construction styles, often mixing large flat roof construction with pitched roofs on newer builds. This also leads to a mix of building materials used 
to provide buildings that meet a much wider range of building regulations.
 
Teaching methods
Older construction of teaching spaces would have been based on the teaching methods and educational principles existing at the time. Teaching practice changes over time and has done so particularly over the last 30 years. Newer building work reflects these changes, as well as architectural design and building regulations.
 
Use of space
Similarly to the changes in building and extensions, schools also change how they use a space. The increase in the teaching of IT and the huge shift in the use of technology by both staff and pupils radically changed how teaching and non-teaching space is used. Schools need now to be more accessible to all. More support is provided within every school for pupils who have special needs, rather than them being catered for only in specialist facilities. This affects how space is used and can sometime result in ad-hoc change to meet acute or immediate needs.
 
School numbers
This is probably the main factor that drives most of the others, particularly over the last ten years. In the 1990s, school numbers were falling and change could often result from school closure or sharing of accommodation; but now the situation is reversed and pressure on places results in any space being utilised.So a lobby, cloakroom or corridor is likely to be used for some type of learning – from a small group work space with a table and four chairs, to a practical area or library with consequent resource storage in support of teaching and learning.
 
Ofsted indicators
Display in schools is observed and judged as part of Ofsted inspections and this adds emphasis to the inventiveness and ambitious displays that most schools will develop. Key indicators for an outstanding observation are a wide range of well thought out, high quality, stimulating displays used to support the work in class with examples of 3D work, interactive displays and examples of best work.
 
One Ofsted report, written about Oakfield Primary School in Essex, commented: ‘Stunning displays throughout the school stimulate and support pupils and show their engagement in their learning. Displays illustrate the richness of the curriculum and show that all groups of learners have equal access to learning.’ 
 
Central displays 
Displays around the school should be part of an overall stimulating learning environment and designed to generate pupil interest. As well as pupils’ work, they might include teacher-generated content (demonstrating quality of teaching) and commercially produced material. Teaching staff can take specific courses to improve display skills and teaching applications. 
 
They are also an opportunity to provide evidence of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development – an area that Ofsted inspectors will consider when evaluating the school.
 
In addition to celebrating pupils’ achievements, they feature work on literacy, numeracy, art, geography and cultures from around the world, which help to reinforce learning and extend pupils’ knowledge and understanding of multicultural Britain.
 
As display is an essential and valuable part of schools and learning, the solution is not as simple as asking for it to be removed, as you might in other environments.
 
Display ‘designed in’
 
Government guidance, Building Bulletin 100: design for fire safety in schools (BB100), is the accepted design guidance for new and refurbished schools with Part B of the Building Regulations ‘satisfied where the life safety guidance in this document is followed’. The guidance states: ‘Escape routes need to be kept free of clutter and the fire behaviour of the controlled linings should not become compromised. Whilst this is primarily a management issue it is recommended that, as circulation spaces are ideal for dispensing information, the designer may wish to put display material on the escape route which can be behind a transparent cover to hold it in place.’ 
 
According to Paragraph 3.1.6 Corridors and circulation areas: ‘The schools’ circulation routes will almost certainly be important for relaying information to the pupils by means of notice boards, or used as a display area eg, pupils’ work. Notice boards should not be more than 3m wide, and there should be a gap between notice boards on the same wall of at least 1m. Notice boards in a protected corridor should be fitted with a cover, preferably top hung so that the cover cannot be left ‘jutting-out’ into the escape route. 
 
‘If a corridor is lined with lockers then these should be made from materials of limited combustibility (as defined in appendix A), and any rooms off the corridor should be regarded as inner rooms with the corridor treated as the access room.’ 
 
Teaching environment 
 
Is a corridor an escape route or a learning opportunity? Schools need to fulfil curriculum requirements, which can require access to specific resources. Storing these can often present a dilemma, especially for smaller schools and those built in the earlier part of the 20th century. The Victorians didn’t provide a lot of educational resources and, even as late as the 1970s, most learning took place with pupils sitting at tables looking at a board, books or writing, so storage provision is very limited in some places. 
 
Learning these days, particularly for younger pupils is far more active. Pupils require access to a great choice of resources and learning experiences with free movement between learning spaces and without the restricted boundaries of the past. 
 
Present day design is far more generous for storage and every classroom should have a minimum of one walk-in storage for primary and a large full-height, built-in store in secondary schools. The early years’ space will have storage for several different types of teaching resource. Fitting all this into spaces built for completely different teaching practices can be a problem for those that are not fortunate enough to have accommodation remodelled and extended. Other solutions will involve the inventive use of all available space and probably the supply of least one outside store. 
 
A common layout of many primary schools gives classes access to a practical space that is often shared. Some schools will have the luxury of an external exit from the classroom, but in a lot of cases the teaching space is also the escape route. The optimising of all the available space in this way in turn creates inner rooms of all the classrooms.
 
The need to have a view into the access room is often not the problem, as glazed panels would not be unusual – schools built in the ‘60s/’70s would have teaching space built around an inner courtyard to provide light to corridors and other spaces. However, to teaching staff, a glazed partition is another wall and therefore another display surface, and complying with the requirement for inner rooms to have a clear view of the access room (practical space) can be ever-changing depending on the theme or subject pupils are learning that term. Other uses for corridor and circulation space include:
 
  • location for shared use of computers for pupils to access readily
  • location for small groups to work together or with a member of staff
  • location of small reading groups
  • space for pupil learning support
  • storage of outdoor clothing
  • storage of books and resources
  • celebration and display of pupils work
  • display of project work
As escape routes can so often be spaces where learning takes place, whether or not they were designed to be, they tend to be occupied and used as a classroom, and the real issues can start when they are treated more as classrooms than escape routes. 
 
It is also important that the school environment is stimulating, imaginative and attractive to children in order to provide a motivating, inspired and exciting place to learn. As schools have to display pupils’ work and create that stimulating learning environment, BB100 guidance can very often be ignored. 
 
BB100 recognises that circulation spaces are important places to convey information and provides guidelines on a maximum length of 3m of unbroken notice board and a clear space of 1m; this is often easily achieved with classroom doors leading off the same corridor, as long as the doors are not included in the display and ceiling decoration is avoided. 
 
Pupils are also taught from an early age, and independent learning and display can often be created at an accessible height. Display set at a low height can create conflict with fire safety, for example where young pupils pin their display over the room heater, where they are able to reach.
 
Changing attitudes
 
Throughout the list of issues and conflicts raised in relation to schools, the use of display and accepted fire safety requirements on escape routes, there has been no mention of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which applies as much to schools as any other non-domestic premise. This is mainly because it is covered very succinctly by one of the most useful pieces of guidance that has been generated from official sources in CFOA Circular 2016-14: Fire Safety in Schools, dated 22 August 2016.
 
This document outlines very simply the requirement to minimise combustible display in corridors and circulation spaces. However, what makes this guidance more valuable is that it has been collectively produced and endorsed not just by the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA), but also Ofsted and the Education Funding Agency, and seeks to dispel any misconception that Ofsted encourages the use of display that may have a detrimental impact on fire safety provision.
 
Every school needs to be aware of this guidance so that they can feel confident in balancing the requirements of fire safety and an outstanding learning environment. It is too common an occurrence for escape routes to contain excessive display, and Ofsted inspectors do not and will not penalise schools that are unable to use display or provide additional opportunities for learning if these are restricted due to the need to protect the means of escape.
 
The CFOA document has already made an impact in some of the schools our health and safety advisors visit, and improvements to levels of display are beginning to be noticed in more modest and restricted displays in corridors and lobbies with a proportionate approach to interesting but more limited content. There is still a way to go with sharing teaching and escape routes with furniture and resources, but now that schools have the ‘authority’ to limit cardboard and textile display, perhaps the tide has turned. 
 
Jane Hopkins is health and safety advisor and radiation protection officer at Warwickshire County Council Education Services