A child runs full speed across an open grass circle, racing to reach the other side. The ground is bumpy and uneven, and as the child nears the perimeter of the grass, they trip and fall to their knees. They cry. Eventually, the child picks themselves up and carries on running.

The same thing happens the next day, and the next. But by the end of the week, the child makes it all the way across the grass without falling. They allow themselves a small moment of victory in the form of a huge smile.

This might sound like a harsh way to learn the lesson of looking where you are running - literally the school of hard knocks - but it adheres to the tried-and-tested learning philosophy of the Fuji Kindergarten, a preschool and primary in the Tachikawa suburb of Tokyo, Japan, in which the above scenario is very much a reality.

“Our field is bumpy on purpose,” says the school’s principal, Sekiichi Kato. “The reason for this is that we want children to fall and learn not to fall again.

“And there are many other inconveniences that we create on purpose for the children’s future convenience.”

As you may have guessed, this is quite an unusual place to go to school. And it offers schools elsewhere a fascinating glimpse of an alternative way of teaching early years and primary-aged children.

The uniqueness begins with the building. The first thing the casual observer will notice is its curious shape: the main school building is an enormous wooden doughnut, with sets of steps leading up to a flat roof (with the “bumpy” grass in the middle).

At ground level, the entire interior is open both to the central outdoor area and to itself, with classroom divisions created by movable wooden blocks.

It was designed and built 10 years ago by Tezuka Architects, a Japanese firm whose specialism is building spaces for children. It replaced a more conventional structure that Kato says didn’t fit the pedagogy the school wished to pursue - and had a detrimental effect on his energy levels. “The old building had a [horseshoe] shape…and I had to walk from one end to another to observe the kids, which was tiring,” he explains.

A house undivided

Just as there are no firm divisions between classrooms (everything is moveable and porous to sound), there is no firm division between the outside and the inside, or between “classroom” and “play” spaces.

“There is no real concept of inside or outside [at all] - just a place where children can grow,” says Kato.

For example, the roof and outdoor areas are all set up to encourage intuitive play, so students can run around, hula-hoop, dig in sandboxes and try painting or drawing during breaktime in areas that, strictly speaking, are classroom spaces.

If you think that this all sounds like chaos and an environment in which no work could possibly get done, then you are right - and that’s kind of the point. Just as the ground between the doughnut ring has been made purposefully bumpy, the whole school environment is designed to test the children’s resolve.

“The 16 classrooms are only divided by partitions, which [are made of] simple board, so it is possible to expand or shrink down the rooms freely,” Kato says. “You can hear noises from both sides of the room and see outside through the glass doors and windows.

“What we want to grow [in the children] is the ability to be able to concentrate in any sort of situation or condition.”

He explains that class sizes can vary between lessons, and can include up to 35 students. Everything, he emphasises, is set up to produce adaptable, flexible pupils.

“Having the ability to [be this way] at a young age will [help them] go a long way and that is our goal,” says Kato.

At this point, you might be wondering where technology comes into all this. Japan is famous for being much more advanced in how integrated technology is with daily life, and the narrative of flexible, adaptable pupils would seem to fit with a tech-first approach.

But the school sees things quite differently. Kato feels that it is to the children’s advantage to experience a more tactile school environment, instead of the touch-sensitive, smoothed out world of technology.

“We use more of an old-style type of thing,” he reveals. “For example, our lights are lightbulbs with strings attached to them. We see this type of light in old houses.

“Also, on the taps of our water fountain we use the type where you have to twist the knob. This is better for children because they have control over the situation.”

Similarly, in the “classrooms”, there is a very analogue approach. There are no computers or smartboards. Instead, teachers have simple tin-backed whiteboards that they move around the class.

Playful ethos

So, does the school have a unique curriculum tailored to the space? It would seem difficult to deliver conventional pedagogy in such an unconventional environment.

Interestingly, much of the curriculum is standardised by the Japanese government.

There are compulsory subjects (including maths, sciences and Japanese language, as well as optional English classes), options for extracurricular provision, formulations for testing and examination, and guidelines for supporting students with additional needs. Essentially, this is a normal education offer being delivered in a unique way.

That’s not to say that teachers cannot go off-piste. As long as the basics are being covered, staff are free to teach in any way they see fit. And the school lays on training so that teachers can share best practice and learn to work with, not against, the environment of the school.

The big question, then, is: does it work? Can education be delivered successfully this way?

“[We have had] many compliments in the area of education, architecture, design and others,” says Kato. “We’ve had many visitors from all over the world to observe what we do here and we have been covered by the media, magazines, etc, so I think it’s safe to say that we are doing OK for now.”

On attainment, he says the children all achieve comparable outcomes to other schools, but he stresses that the biggest benefits of the environment are the things tests do not measure: resilience, character and confidence. And he says one of the bonuses of the design of the school is the effect the transparency of the shared spaces has on the social lives of the students.

“Because our doors and windows are all glass, you can see everything. Everything is so exposed that we rarely see any bullying, which tends to happen a lot behind doors or in blindspots,” he says.

He adds that parents are able to visit and observe the school “without any stress”, and “the daily operation” of the school “runs [more] smoothly” as a result.

The playful ethos of the school is apparently infectious: when parents do visit, “it is funny watching [some of them] dangling their legs out of the bars on top of the roof, which children like to do”, he says.

It is a school designed fundamentally with children in mind, says Kato, because if we want children to learn, you need a space where “children are actually being children during their childhood years”.

Molly Bolding is a freelance journalist

This article originally appeared in the 15 January 2021 issue under the headline “A unique space where every day is independence day”