A forthcoming conference will highlight the need for a new approach to the design of school buildings. Children should be inspired to learn and not be oppressed and confined by their surroundings, say the experts. Aine Kerr reports

Creating a school building that reflects and promotes more personalised learning at the expense of traditional rote-learning techniques and uninspiring surroundings is now a universal challenge, according to Prof Stephen Heppell, director of the Learn3K global research centre in the National College of Ireland and a leading international expert.

Learning factories processing robotic learners need to be replaced by futuristic schools that promote collaborative and problem-solving educational experiences. Heppell believes that, in this regard, the Irish education system is now on the cusp of a "big adventure".

At a conference in Croke Park next week entitled Discovering the Hidden Connections for Learning - Learning Spaces, Community Places, Heppell will provide educational experts with three distinct choices - to lead, to follow or to fail.

"The one-size-fits-all strategy is dead - it's about personalisation," says Heppell, who is currently travelling the world gathering best-practice examples from the top 25 schools internationally. Failing or following are not perceived as realistic options for a country aspiring to become a leader in the knowledge-based society, he says.

Accepting the school of thought that there is a relationship between the design of learning environments and learning outcomes is upon us.

"What we need to do now is to move examinations forward, and move from assessing people who can rhyme things off from memory to assessing people who collaborate . . . in a world of Google, remembering is not as important as it was," he says.

In the UK, four new schools are opened every day. But while the standards of each may vary, the fact that the resources and foresight are being provided to educational buildings is significant according to Heppell.

"Irish schools have traditionally been built in the community because of the church legacy, whereas many countries are trying to put that sense of community back now. A lot of Irish schools have a head start on the rest of the world."

Ireland's added advantage is that there are many small schools with a low student-teacher ratio. This compares favourably to schools in locations such as Singapore which may have up to 3,500 pupils on the roll.

But the closure of small Irish schools, where children and teachers communicate more via the internet in order to integrate with others, is perceived as something of a travesty in Irish education by Heppell. It signals a lapse in noticing the importance of learning in a "virtual world".

"It's so silly, what a mistake . . . it's like killing off all the valuable plants in the rainforest."

While northern Europe, Asia and Australia are experimenting with radical new schools and proving that a more creative learning environment can lead to enormous improvements in children's learning, Ireland remains somewhat hesitant.

The multi-denominational school in Ranelagh, Dublin, which won the Triennial Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI) last year remains a blueprint for futuristic designs.

Sheila O'Donnell, of O'Donnell and Tuomey, who designed the award-winning school, are now working on the first primary school multiplex in Cherry Orchard in Dublin. This Department of Education pilot project valued at €11 million is due to open in June of this year with 16 classrooms, a canteen, baby facilities, an early-start unit and a special-care unit.

Designed to address not just education, but wider community and social needs, the school will remain open all day because of the welfare facilities and the afterschool care unit located in the two-storey building.

Next week's conference, which is organised by the Presentation Centre for Policy and Systemic Change, will challenge educationalists to aspire to building more community-based schools such as Cherry Orchard.

The Presentation Centre, which is the umbrella group for the Presentation Sisters' Order, was established to plan the direction of the order's future work, according to director of the centre, David Rose.

A link between creative school designs and effective learning has long been emphasised by the centre, which seeks to impress upon the Government the need to blur the line between school-based and community-based learning.

"The blurring of the edges between school and community would make the school building more flexible, open for longer and provide more courses for adults. These flexible buildings are the future proof for schools," says Rose.

This divide between primary, secondary and third-level institutions has already been softened internationally - in a particularly radical move 11-year-olds in Adelaide, Australia regularly attend university lectures.

A more time-consuming and academic curriculum has also led to less physical movement amongst pupils, with some schools removing school corridors completely and thus cutting out even minimal physical movement between lessons.

If Ireland is to become a world leader in offering new models of learning and learning environments, our exam model needs to evolve and provide more practical and enjoyable learning experiences, according to Heppell.

"I want to see children seduced by learning, so much so that they see it as something they want to do forever. Education is becoming a much less one-size-fits-all scenario."

The Discovering the Hidden Connections for Learning conference, Learning Spaces, Community Places, is sponsored by The Irish Times and takes place on Monday, March 27th in Croke Park Conference Centre, Dublin.