Inspiring Spaces – Why Environment is Key in Education

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Wellspring Break. Well Spring's break, we've had a bit of a break, but let's be honest. But we're back now and ready to go. I'm your host, Elizabeth Hudson, and every fortnight I'll be talking to education leaders about what's going on in schools, the successes and challenges for the future microphone education system. We'll also squeeze in a quick firewriter to find out what I guess some school days were like. First, joining me in front of the mic this year is Wellspring's Deputy Chief Executive Josh Greaves. Josh first joined Wellspring back in 2016 as Chief Operating Officer and made the headlines in 2019 when he was promoted to Deputy Chief Exec at the tender age of just 29. He regularly oversees multimillion pound projects and heads up the operation of a school estate worth more than £100 million. He's a politics graduate, fiercely committed to ensuring every child has access to top quality learning environments and is focused on sustainability in school. Josh, welcome to the Wellspring Way.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

First off, how's your summer been?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Great, great. I had a combination of a bit of time off and then uh amazing opportunities to travel around the estate, see lots of people, and look at some of the brilliant things we've been doing investment-wise this summer.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

So schools have been closed for summer, quiet time for lots of people in parts of the education system perhaps, but definitely not for your team. So, what's been some of the big projects going on this summer?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

So we call the summer break the seventh term of the year, and I always celebrate it on Twitter by uh welcoming colleagues in certain teams in the trust to the seventh term of the year. As you say, it tends to go a bit quieter, but um those hopefully six weeks, but this this this time it's been as little as five in some instances, do represent the busiest time for so many people. So um, from within our own resources, we've invested just over five million pounds in learning environments, infrastructure, information technology improvements, and such across uh 30 different projects. So an army, in effect, of our people and uh third-party partners working on everything from the usual exciting boiler plant replacements to creating um amazing open plan reception spaces in some of our special schools, uh, new roofs, new lighting, um, right down to some exciting art installations. So it's been incredibly busy.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I saw some pictures on Twitter actually of the new reception area at Pennyfield.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yeah, shout out to Tom Sanders uh for the um the vision and innovation that he brings to projects like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Yeah, you see the pictures of the kids' reactions when they walk in, and it just really brings it home how important that kind of stuff is, which brings us on to the importance of high-quality school environments. Why is it so important that we invest in space as well as obviously quality teaching and everything else that wraps around education?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I'm gonna start really quickly with the point you just finished on, which is the thing that matters the most is the people in the buildings. You know, we can make amazing spaces, but it's all about what goes on inside the expertise and the amazing folk with wonderful kids. And there can be um a misunderstanding about investment in spaces. Um, back in the the Labour years with Building Schools for Future, there were tens of billions of pounds put into the public realm, but a lot of that went on what you might look at as vanity projects in hindsight, so huge seven-story atriums of dead space that look amazing but don't actually serve a practical purpose. For us, what we try to do is we try to marry the two things to form and function. So um places have a an experiential benefit for the people in them, whether they be little people or big people, it it influences mood, it influences kind of your aspect and your in your sense of wellness and well-being, as well as being very, very functional in a positive way. So for us, it's about not having that poverty of aspiration of just maintaining buildings, having enough aspiration and and a bit of creative flair and whimsy where the opportunity arises, like potentially at that Pennyfield reception that you've mentioned. There are things there that aren't essential, but we do the we do the basics incredibly well, but we um we want them to be um inspiring and a little bit different because wellness, happiness are just as important to learning as resources and great teachers.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Yeah, it's that sense of balance, isn't it? That actually if if you're in a space that looks fabulous and engaging and bright, it's a real message to you that you matter.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

It is, and um not to look at this from a deficit perspective, but it's um incredibly often it is not the case that people feel invested in, and and um the the most tangible manifestation that is is where you come to school. So you walk through the doors and it's a dump. How do you feel? You walk through the doors, or even before you get to the doors, there's a sense that you know there's a splash of colour, there's some conscientious thought gone into this is nice, I'm interested, what's inside that makes a world of difference. If then there's a um uh a consciously considered theme that runs throughout that isn't kind of standardised across the truss by any stretch of the imagination, but if it looks and feels like somebody's thought about this and it's interesting, you kind of you stand taller, you feel excited, you you you feel like actually my community cares about me. Even if only in a small weight, there's a there's a um either a marginal gains benefit or a or an enormous benefit.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

You see those programmes, don't you, you know, the kind where Nick Knowles turns up and transforms the space and the whole community, the the whole everyone gets a lift, don't they? Um it's really important stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

And and it's important to have kind of a variety of perspectives. So um was it Nick Knowles or um uh is it Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen, you know, or Charlie Dimmock or whoever it might be, so people with different perspectives all contributing, you know. So those three people, as far as I know, come with somewhere between practical um, you know, an outdoors innovation uh perspective or um crazy flair. And actually, if we can harness those different perspectives, and I'm not naming names, but I can think of I can think of um, you know, perhaps they might be doppelgangs for other people.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I'd be fascinated to know who Wells Springs, Lawrence, Llewellyn Bowen is.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I know a few people with a uh a ponchon for um bright scarves, so um it it's about welcoming all of those strands and not just keeping ourselves open and warm and dry, but not also just looking nice and not having the basics in place.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

There's some massive projects underway at the minute, isn't there? We're talking free schools, rebuilds, big, big multi-million pound projects. Um, and obviously, one of the showcase buildings, I guess, for Wellspring is elements. Um, how challenging are those huge showcase projects, big rebuild projects?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

They're fantastic and um challenging. So um we are kind of leading that investment across, you know, we're uh eight new builds in with um five more in pipeline. It's gonna be well north of 120 million pounds of investment. Um we're not in the we don't have total control over all aspects of that. So some of it is working with local authorities, and that tends to be a um uh a co-productive approach to um to designing and establishing new buildings. So we come with it from a pedagogical and from an experiential perspective in terms of this is what our young people need. Free schools and projects with a DFE are um more prescriptive because they're trying to build hundreds of buildings, and if you can do it all the same, it tends to be cheaper and quicker. So it depends which project it is, but kind of taking a macro that the the biggest challenge, and the thing I um I wrote about in the 10th anniversary edition of Difference Makers was um is the the fight for want of a better word for um it not being a a a homogenous cookie-cutter approach to building things, you know, it's not flat pack, it's about the the the little people who are gonna be living and learning in them, and as we know, you know, elements wonderful mainstream primary school in the heart of its community. That's very different to Springwell Leeds, that's gonna be very different different to the um the 100 Place Special School in Selby, and likewise an SCMH school in Sheffield. So it is the um it is the determination and and courage and our convictions really to to argue with the people paying for the thing, yeah, and doing so in a in a in a credible and uh as much of a partnership way as possible, whilst not um taking a pragmatic approach but not backing down. So that's the biggest challenge. The numbers and the programmes and the timescales almost happen. It's it's sweating the small stuff and making sure that we don't discount um something that actually will make our our educators' lives a nightmare and may actually be a key trigger for some of our kids if we do it wrongly.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, which brings us on actually to my next question, which is about you know what makes the perfect education environment? What what what is it? What does it need? Um because we know that we know, like we said, that so unfortunately some kids are going to schools that are totally dysfunctional in terms of building and space, and you know, they're horrible places to be in terms of surroundings, might have wonderful teachers and wonderful ethos, but they're not great places to be. What makes a place brilliant?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

So despite having been involved in all of those new builds and maintaining our current estate and curating it, um, I'm I'm woefully underqualified to answer this question. Um, the thing that makes it for me is not really the outputs of it, it's how you get to that point. So um having having the right people, the right educational professionals involved in the process and not being blindsided by contractors and people telling you what to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Um so I've dodged the question, Elizabeth, though. I think wonderfully. Um the one the one key standout for me that comes to mind, and I just want to pick my words as carefully as possible, is um is balance. So um space in corridors really counts, but it feels like dead space and it costs loads of money. Big open plan classrooms are fabulous, but if there's nowhere for young people to break out and and and and and do kind of more discrete activities, the classrooms are actually just a cacophonous kind of noisy hall.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, and particularly I'm thinking you know, we deal with a lot of kids with you know um special needs and things.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

So it's balance without compromise, and and and that probably also sounds like a bit of a dodge, but making sure you're really weighing everything up because there is only one envelope of space. Um so um balance, which comes from research and real deep thought about what is going to make a difference.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yeah, well, I know kind of Wellspring's big on that, isn't it? You know, lots of research into why we do what we do. It's not it's not just kind of feelings, it's led by led by real research.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah. And and and a bit of instinct.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Um, because um new ideas have to start somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, yeah. And we're not scared of that, definitely not scared of that. Um sustainability and the environmental agenda. I know that's becoming more and more important in Wellspring. Um and obviously, kind of on a global scale, it's it's huge, but what what how is Wellspring incorporating that into its um building agenda?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

So um we've been we've been on it, but in kind of a quiet way and in a way that um perhaps we haven't really fully realised how much we were doing for a while. So um we've almost replaced where needed all of our um windows, double glazing, for example. We've got uh heaps of LED lighting where uh previously we didn't, but those were those are kind of infrastructural things that just happened because they were as part of a replacement schedule. So what what we're working hard to do now is to think of it, think about it more holistically. There is a real catalyst around the current cost of energy, and and um that is a set of circumstances we're not going to waste in terms of mobilising around that, but um, we're trying to look at it from both a physical space infrastructure and a cultural perspective. So we've spent some time back in the last academic year beginning to talk with leaders about some of the things they were already doing and what they could do even more with young people uh and adults in in the buildings, potential to save 15% of our carbon footprint just by changing habits and behaviour without uh adversely affecting the way we use buildings, so there's a huge potential there. Um looking to um reduce our reliance on on grid electricity in particular, so um wherever we can, self-sufficiency around solar panels and uh we're looking set to um invest well over a million pounds of our own money over the next couple of years just in that that initiative alone. Uh heavy involvement in um what's called the public sector decarbonisation scheme. So that's looking at replacing um traditional carbon-based uh heating sources like gas boilers, however efficient, with pumps, heat, air source in combination with solar, ideally funded by the government wherever possible. But um again, that's part of our agenda, and we're putting aside money towards that. Um and then the final element um is really about how we can do that in a way which uh helps helps us, so it's it's not a final element, the net product from that is hopefully a um a more financially sustainable um future for Wellspring schools for um public sector in general because there's a lot of this activity going on elsewhere, um, but it's one where we're making an actual uh difference environmentally, so um a win-win is what we're looking for there. There was a final thing, I put a number on it and I lost it. Listeners can't see Elizabeth can see me sort of scrambling around in my head for the final thing, having put a number on it. We we're in some of those big projects that we mentioned a moment ago um have been selected by the government to be um effectively net zero pilot schemes.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

I was just gonna ask you about the feasibility of getting to net zero, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah, um so um what what we're in a fortunate position of having in those is is at um is at Scunthorpe and at Sheffield, and with the um the prospective developments at certainly Beacon um and one other um is um net zip what's called not net zero in operation. So there's still a lot of carbon produced in in building the schools, but through a combination of of the things that I mentioned a moment ago, so uh air source pumps and and ground source pumps rather than gas boilers through solar installation, through um living roofs, through um through other less um less obvious things like rainwater gardens. So rather than uh putting an enormous amount of energy and cost and carbon into building tanks under under the sites of schools, which is most people wouldn't realise that they're walking around on top of big, very safe attenuation tanks, um using the the living environment to um to manage runoff uh and and rainwater capture and other um so so those enormous schemes should all be net zero in operation, which should save us money, should have an environmental benefit, and should be um showcases for us in terms of what we can do internally, but um they're on a national scale as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Well, that solves the energy crisis crisis, doesn't it? If you're totally self-sufficient, yes and no.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

So um uh without getting into some of the some of the sort of micro details, as as our head of capital Sean Keenan keeps kicking me and telling me going off-grid, so using um off-grid in a gas sense, yeah, using pumps, for example, probably adds 400% to your electricity consumption because they're an electricity-dependent means of uh heating, hence why you also complement with your solar panels to try and offset that. Right. So there is a there is a definite environmental benefit, but there is a kind of a cautious optimism to the the savings that come from those sorts of things, which is why we also need to pack as much of the rest of the trust with solar panels as possible, so we can create an equitable position for everyone, both in terms of reducing our reliance on uh carbon-based uh production, but also trying to balance the books as best we can.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, it makes yeah, it makes a lot of sense, you know, and and and it is a huge investment, but it's that thing about you know hundred-year plans, isn't it? While spring kind of looking far into the future and what's going to work long long term rather than just sort things out over the next 12 months.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

And and just to go back to the question that I didn't really answer in terms of how feasible is um net zero, um another question I'm worthly underqualified to answer. But we've talked a lot about um not waiting for policymakers necessarily to give us a roadmap to uh that as one part of the future. Yeah. Um I don't know about timescales um in terms of kind of net zero more broadly. Um, and I'm not in a position yet to put a definitive on it for us because we're still in a feasibility stage on that. But if if everyone did the sorts of things wherever possible they can, like we're we're wrestling with and trying to do, it is likely to make a far bigger impact more rapidly than waiting for a big ticket solution and a handout. Yeah. So we're trying to take it to take our responsibility seriously, which is part of the hundred-year thinking of that agenda.

unknown 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I'd like to talk a little bit about your journey in Wellspring now. So politics graduate, that's right. How on earth then did you come from politics graduate to leading massive um trust projects, building you know, multi-million pound projects, all the rest of it. What's what was that journey? And weren't you ever tempted to go into politics?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Um I don't know whether you're supposed to make noises like that on a microphone. Uh but that that that you know they say a picture um paints a thousand words. Hopefully that sound um uh articulates a thousand thoughts. Um so I um I probably shouldn't have done politics, Elizabeth. So I I I was due to do English literature and history, and I just found myself getting my best results in politics, so switched at the last minute and then got my worst mark in politics. Uh still did really well, obviously, because I tried hard, but um that was a joke. Um but uh went into it a little bit blind, and that probably influences why. No, I never considered going into politics. Um I um I found I'd always been a teaching assistant during school holidays uh at a special school. Uh-huh. Um and so when I finished university with no plan or clue, as most of us do. Absolutely, yeah. Um kind of not at a dissimilar time to kind of the global financial crash and and kind of handing out graduate jobs, particularly. Yeah, I just carried on being a relief teaching assistant while I tried to find a path. And um there was a uh a colleague there who uh was in the kind of the business management side of schools, and I asked if I could do some voluntary work, and he said yes, if I did a load of additional study and courses, um some of which I needed to pay for myself, so I had a I had a brief think about that and then said yes, thank you very much, and it kind of progressed from there. So um I always was pulled to the um the kind of the big infrastructure side of things that really excited me. Um uh I studied for a project management qualification, so that kind of has probably influenced my whatever skill set I've got in this space. Um and I suppose just worked hard and got a bit of luck.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Maybe or maybe maybe tal talent, Josh.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

It works, yeah, it works out some some some talent and and some fortune in meeting people from a similar perspective.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, I mean that is there's a definite ethos, isn't there, Wellspring? You know, yeah. We kind of all kind of flock together with a similar, similar mindset.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

What's everyone else doing? Do we think we could do it better? Not necessarily, but we'll have a go. Um I'm uh that that definitely appealed to me.

unknown 21:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah, yeah, it's um yeah, it's a great place to work, isn't it really? Right then. Now, as we said at the beginning, we're gonna do a little bit of a of a quick fire round. Choice of two, dead easy, can't get it wrong. Um, just to get a little taste of what what you liked about school or perhaps didn't. So, first up, easy one. School dinners are packed lunches.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Packed lunches because we couldn't afford it. And and I weren't I I was not having one of those tokens at secondary school.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

I can I can understand that. I think that's lots of people did that. Um maths or English?

SPEAKER_01 22:36

English.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Obviously, because you were going to do that at uni. Um school trip or school disco?

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Disco. Absolutely disco. I had an amazing set of orange trainers as well at my Levers Disco at primary school that went down terribly, but I love them.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

It's amazing because you know what? I can remember my my outfit for my Levers Disco.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Orange, they were they were wild.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Brilliant. Um music or drama?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Music.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Do you play anything?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Bass guitar.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Do you?

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Badly.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Outdoor or indoor PE? Outdoor. Favourite, favourite sport. I was absolutely hopeless at P school.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

At um at school, I love rugby.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

I was this tall when I was 13. So I was a second rower um at at secondary school, and then I stopped growing and I got three broken noses in one season and sacked it off as a bad job. Because everyone else carried on growing.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

So I keep telling my son because he's really short, and I'm like, it it will happen, you're just behind everyone else.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah, that might be false promise, but I hope so. I hope so. It didn't happen for me.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Hopefully, it doesn't take after me, or he'll be you know four foot eleven forever. Um primary or secondary? Secondary. Why's that?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Uh I I had a a mixed primary school experience at best. Um I got pretty mercilessly bullied all the way through um for really strange reasons. I'm sure some of which were my making, but but um just a bad bunch. Um, so I I I uh I remember my primary education as being um well to be honest, something that I want to be part of uh ensuring other people don't experience.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Secondary was great, brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Well, you know, I suppose it shouldn't happen at all, but if it's got to go one way, then at least on a high end ended it on a high, yeah, yeah. Um and finally, um not related to your school days, but this is a question we ask everyone. If I could give you a magic wand and money was no object, there were no limits on anything, um, restraints, if you could change one thing to improve the education system in this country today, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Level the playing field and remove um some of the class and um access barriers that exist, not naming any particular type of school, but um genuine equality of opportunity for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah, good one. Um well thanks so much for joining us, Josh. It's been lovely to have you. Pleasure. Best of luck with all those massive new school and rebuild projects that you've got going on, because I know there's a lot happening. Um, and thanks to you, the listener, for listening. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode of The Wellspring Way. Next time we'll be joined by Dave Whitaker, who'll be sharing his experiences and talking about some of the things in his book, The Kindness Principle. Till then, take care, and we look forward to you joining us next time.