Natural light streams through the windows, and bounces off the walls, which are painted a tranquil mint green. The new breakout areas are “zoned” in energising orange, and each bulb in the lamps on the desks has been carefully selected to most closely replicate sunlight.

The design choices give the impression that you are standing in the office of a tech start-up, rather than a common room, used day in, day out by hundreds of teenagers.

The room certainly feels welcoming. But does that really matter? Surely the way that college rooms look is irrelevant, as long as the quality of the teaching that takes place in them is high?

Well, according to research, appearances might matter more than you think. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the way a classroom is set up can mean the difference between stifling creativity and helping students to thrive.

And as FE students have spent the past few months studying from home - forced to work from dining-room tables, pokey home offices and, in some cases, uncomfortable sofas - they are likely to pay even more attention to their college learning environments than usual this term.

So, do colleges need to adapt learning environments to be more comfy and homely to reflect what students have grown used to while home learning? Do they need to go the other way and make the college as workplace-like and vibrant as possible to emphasise its difference? Or does how a college looks not matter at all?

According to one 2013 analysis entitled The Effect of Classroom Environment on Student Learning, there is a multitude of important factors that must be considered when it comes to designing an effective learning space. Everything from desk arrangements and wall decorations, to lighting and room temperature can influence students.

“The classroom environment plays a crucial role in keeping students engaged and allowing them to be successful within the classroom,” says the paper’s author, Ryan Hannah. “The teacher can modify the environment to achieve these results. They can arrange the desks in different patterns. They can decorate the walls with different assignments or items. Even adapting the lighting or the temperature of the room can increase the effectiveness of instruction in the classroom.”

He adds: “A good teacher is aware of these elements and the importance that they play in student success. Without giving attention to the environment of a classroom, the teacher is setting their students up to be less successful.”

Gurvinder Khurana, director and co-founder of workplace design company Align, agrees with this. She believes that it could be particularly important for colleges to pay attention to these factors now, at a time when unfamiliar social distancing measures and cleaning regimes are likely to make learning environments feel more clinical.

Making changes to create home-inspired comfort could have an immediate impact on students, many of whom have likely already experienced “isolation, anxiety and lack of social interaction” during lockdown, she suggests. “The resulting appetite will be for more hybrid spaces that provide both home-inspired comfort and smaller-scale zoning, whilst also maximising the opportunity for social and collaborative group-working,” she explains.

Joe Haire, director at White Red Architects, points out that changes do not have to be dramatic to be effective. Colleges can encourage students to interact with their environments more fully simply by rearranging furniture or using zoning techniques (see box, below).

“In our work on student projects, there are two ideas we are developing,” he explains. “The first is that spaces should not be entirely prescriptive. It may be that layout, equipment finishes, etc, provide suggestions, but it should be possible that it can serve a variety of uses.

“The second is in promoting interaction. Use of colour and material are good ways of suggesting that something can be changed. Zoning, use of dividers and other moving elements are simple tools that allow people to easily take control of their environment.”

Colleges could take some tips from office design here, Khurana suggests. It would make sense for leaders to have a better understanding of how design choices can affect students’ wellbeing, both in terms of how “colour, texture, natural light, air quality and biophilic interventions [bringing nature in]” can have a positive effect on mental health, and in terms of recognising that the need for a space to provide flexibility is not just “task-based, but personality-based, with introverts and extroverts using space in very different ways”.

“FE environments also need to create ‘neighbourhoods’, deep-focus working zones and, above all, refuges - spaces where people can feel more private and less exposed, just as they did at home,” she says.

So, according to the experts, adding a few pot plants to the common room and making sure that you open the classroom blinds to let the sunlight in can have a positive effect on mental health. And students would also benefit from having clearly defined areas for relaxation and study, and having the ability to reconfigure environments based on their individual needs.

But how realistic are these suggestions for colleges that may be strapped for cash, and struggling to ensure that desks are at least two metres apart, let alone arranged into appropriate zones?

Rama Davies, head of sixth form at Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls in Hertfordshire, believes that there is some validity in what the experts have to say. She thinks that it is important for college environments to cater for a variety of needs, even with the current restrictions in place.

“Designated areas that allow students to work independently with peace and quiet as well as areas that promote more interactive, collaborative learning will help young people to develop different skills and to manage their learning time effectively,” she says.

Her team has relied on several key design elements, most notably the use of natural light and relaxing colours, to create learning environments that aim to reduce stress.

“Tranquil, fresh colours such as greens and oranges will lift students even on darker winter days,” she says. “The colours used in learning environments are hugely impactful to the overall learning experience, both in terms of creating a calm setting and also in motivating and lifting moods.”

Allowing students access to views of the grounds is another important part of the strategy, Davies adds. “Common rooms should be airy and full of natural light - glass is very important here, as are soft furnishings and open views where possible. Being able to absorb the outdoor space around you, even when you are inside, can help to heighten mood and support wellbeing.”

Colleges should consider the surrounding area before throwing open those curtains, though. A 2017 study found that while views of calming landscapes and lots of trees had a positive impact on academic outcomes, views of “featureless landscapes”, including lawns and fields, demonstrated the opposite.

However, even if there is nothing more exciting than a football pitch outside your window, increasing the amount of natural light is still one of the most impactful changes that can be made to a college environment, suggests Helen White, lighting expert and co-founder of contemporary design company Houseof. “There are numerous studies citing the importance of our daily dose of sunlight, but many students are normally only lucky enough to see this on [their] way to and from college,” she says. “Having access to sunlight in an educational setting is key to productivity, as well as reducing eye strain and headaches. If you aren’t lucky enough to have a learning environment with window seats then recreate the daylight glow with lighting, looking for bulbs with a colour temperature of 5000 Kelvins plus.”

White also suggests that lighting can be used to “zone breakout areas and relaxing spaces”, such as common rooms. In these areas, floor or table lamps that emit “a soft diffused light” will create “a sense of privacy for relaxation time”, and will help students to “rest and recharge” between lessons.

Before you rush down to Ikea to stock up on floor lamps, though, it’s worth considering whether that money might be better spent on improving existing facilities in a different way. There is a growing body of research that suggests adapting classrooms to better integrate technology can be conducive to learning. This is perhaps particularly important for today’s FE learners, who have become even more accustomed to digital learning techniques, as opposed to pen-and-paper methods, during the pandemic.

Rachael Hardcastle, assistant head of sixth form at Carmel College in Darlington, has recently changed how her team design learning environments for precisely this reason.

“Before the pandemic, we were focused on having a nice, clean area for students to relax in with several study spaces. Now, this has completely changed and we want to shift our focus to technology access,” she says.

“I believe having access to technology rather than cosy places is essential. Students are resilient and are more focused on having what they need to do the best they can, rather than a nice area.

“Students are feeling more pressure than ever, either due to the change with blended learning, not being able to access technology at home, internet speeds - so we need to be able to become that space for them.”

Richard Amlot, head of sixth form at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, agrees that practical considerations are more important to learners than aesthetic ones, but he takes this view one step further, claiming that colleges don’t need to make sweeping decor changes, nor invest in upgraded facilities. Rather, he says, they simply need to appreciate the environments they already offer - because students will be doing the same as they return to colleges after lockdown. “More so now than ever before, our students appreciate the impact of the environment in which they work and exist,” he says.

This is a view shared by Davies, too, despite the design choices her team have made in the past. “Time spent learning at home during lockdown has led to a change in how students perceive their learning environment,” she says. “The lines between home and college are blurring, and young people have shown just how adaptable and agile they are over recent months.”

So before you make any changes to your college environment, the first step might be acknowledging that the students themselves are changing. Lockdown has presented many challenges, but, according to Davies, it has also made students more resilient and better able to prioritise their own learning, no matter what the environment they are being asked to work in looks like.

“Students are happy to be back in their education setting again, but the steep learning curve of lockdown means many have returned with new, honed skills and are increasingly adaptable to the environment they learn in today,” Davies says.

And that means that colleges can probably put those paint cans away, and save “zoning” for another day.

Carly Page is a freelance journalist

This article originally appeared in the 23 October 2020 issue under the headline “A home away from home”