A Wellness Education Policy has been developed at Streetlight Schools – Jeppe Park Primary, the first school in South Africa to achieve a 4-Star Green Star Interiors v1 As Built Rating, demonstrating ‘Best Practice’. The primary school is built on the floor of an old shoe factory in inner city Johannesburg as part of a redevelopment initiative by Bjala, and the education of students in all areas of development and sustainability is evident when you visit the children at the school over time.

Streetlight Schools’ focus is on high-quality low-cost education that puts the wellbeing of the students first; and the new Wellness Education Policy specifically focuses on young learners’ wellbeing and mental health.

Studies in sustainable school design and child mental health development indicate that the main spheres of development in young learners include social, emotional, spiritual, environmental, intellectual and physical wellness. Sustainably designed environments such as classrooms, libraries, play and social areas improve not only learning but also creativity and mental wellbeing.

Physical and mental stress are usually associated with various negative health problems such as psychological disorders and personal isolation from family and friends. As children experience these negative factors from an early age, it is essential to provide them with support to alleviate any stress that might cause mental illness in adulthood.

The Wellness Education Policy implemented at the school allows for topics such as: Creativity and Curiosity; Social Interaction; Physical Activity and Play; Feelings, Emotions and Surroundings. Each learning module linked to each topic includes various wellness and environmental benefits to ensure that all spheres of childhood development are covered. Children are also taught about healthy sleeping habits, fitness and diet, which are essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

In response to its inner-city context, school-ground greening was incorporated as part of the building’s refurbishment. School-ground greening allows for various outdoor activities as well as the inclusion of nature as an integral part of learning and development. The rooftop farming project, implemented on the roof of the development: allows the children to learn about environmental wellness through natural food production and cycles; stimulates their curiosity and problem-solving abilities; and contributes to intellectual development. The natural food produced is also incorporated within the healthy diet that is provided for all students at the school daily.

Seating spaces and a new outdoor play structure allow for social interaction between children; and the secure outdoor environment created for the students allows for physical activity and emotional wellness as children can safely interact and play within the inner city.

Streetlight Schools serves as a progressive model for educating young learners in a sustainable and healthy environment.

References:
Impact of Sustainable School Design on Primary School Children’s Mental Health and Well-Being: II. MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING, pg.32. Int’l Journal of Advances in Agricultural & Environmental Engg. (IJAAEE) Vol. 2, Issue 1 (2015), http://iicbe.or.pdfg/upload/3373C0515020.

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Educational programs for building-occupants and learners are not only important from a resource-efficiency point of view, but also from a social-awareness and behavioural-change point of view. In line with this approach, a Sustainable Education Awareness Program has been developed at Streetlight Schools – Jeppe Park Primary, with a specific focus on the wellbeing of young learners.

Streetlight Schools

Left to right: Warren Gray, Jesse Hamman, Melanie Smuts and Thulani Kuzwayo

Streetlight Schools is the first school in South Africa to achieve a 4-Star Green Star SA Interiors v1 As-Built Rating, demonstrating ‘Best Practice’. It’s the first Green Star SA certified school and 250th Green Star SA certified green building! The primary school is built on the floor of an old shoe factory in inner city Johannesburg. Streetlight Schools focuses on high-quality, low-cost education, and puts the wellbeing of its students first. Education of students in all areas of development and sustainability is evident when you visit the children at the school.

As the building is naturally ventilated with many windows, the students have access to healthy indoor spaces. Clever use of locally sourced materials allows for acoustically designed spaces such as classrooms, libraries, play and social areas suited to educational purposes. School-ground greening allows for various outdoor activities, as well as the inclusion of nature as an integral part of learning and development.

The Educational Framework

The educational framework allows learners to follow staff and teachers’ examples, to transform behavioral change from an early age. Quarterly reports are prepared for learners’ report cards on various educational topics such as energy, water, waste, transportation, the emissions associated with resource depletion, materials and recycling, as well as nature and indoor plants. Each topic is linked to an activity in the learner’s immediate environment that has a positive impact in terms of sustainability and early childhood development.

Activities include making artwork made from upcycled materials, gardening on the rooftop, and daily waste education from the recycling initiatives implemented in the school. These activities allow the students to understand where resources come from, usage depletion and how to work towards using resources sustainably. This creates awareness of sustainable learning from an early age to allow for future behavioural change in society on a larger scale.

The educational framework is under development, and annual updates to the framework will be made to keep the learning modules up to date and current. Streetlight Schools is a positive example of creating awareness in sustainable education that could be implemented in any school across South Africa.

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Streetlight Schools is an innovative, low-cost primary-school model that focuses on enquiry, collaboration, exploration, relevance and the use of technology to teach and learn. This unique approach empowers learners to master core skills and develop curiosity through collaborative learning, technology-enabled classes, project-based learning and instruction.

The site for the school, Jeppe Park Primary, is in the heart of Johannesburg’s inner city, within walking distance of Jeppe Station and directly opposite Jeppe Park. The school forms part of a mixed-use, but primarily residential, development in an existing multi-storey building owned by Bjala, a social enterprise that applies innovative solutions and unique approaches to urbanisation challenges.

Started in October 2013 as an after-school programme, the school has evolved over two years into a fully-fledged school for 45 children – with plans to eventually accommodate 200 learners. Melanie Smuts, CEO and Founder of Streetlight Schools, says:

I started Streetlight Schools to demonstrate that we have all the resources available to create a high-quality, innovative education system in some of our most under-served communities. And we can do so by being bold and innovative about how we think about what we need in education, from curriculum to facilities. The pursuit of green-building certification was born out of the fact that we were already incorporating many principles of sustainability in the school’s interior fit-out, and it allowed us to include many more initiatives into the design, particularly around improving the indoor environmental quality to create a better learning environment. Most importantly, the school will be a living laboratory that allows learners to be introduced to environmental concepts at an early stage in their lives.

Design philosophy

The location of the school at ground-floor level, adjacent to an open-air courtyard, provides both passive and active surveillance for a safer learning environment in one of the city’s most underprivileged neighbourhoods. The goal was to develop an interactive learning environment by creating spaces that would enhance the Streetlight school curriculum, with an adaptive, low-cost built-form merged with the requirements of a high-technology learning model. The result is a multi-functional learning centre that implements green construction practices as far as possible.

Fieldworks Design Group has been working closely with Streetlight Schools from the start, from designing the spatial master plan and detailed elements to physically building the first computer lab to handling the graphic design and signage manufacturing. Albert Smuts, project architect, says:

Being involved from an early stage was key to creating a space radical enough to host a learning model as progressive as this one – and it enabled us to deliver a product that was both cost effective and architecturally interesting. One of our design philosophies is ‘low material, high technology solutions’, meaning that the energy spent on a project should always be focused on finding innovative ways of using readily available, environmentally friendly or recycled materials in a way that minimises wastage.

Collaboration and contribution

To date, the entire spend on the 1,200 sqm project stands at about USD90,000 (ZAR1,5 million). This has largely been made possible through donations of funds and materials – and the pro-active collaboration of consultants in providing pro bono professional services.

Solid Green Consulting became active in the early stages of the project by: contributing its expertise to have the school Green Star SA rated; leveraging its network of suppliers for donations of materials; and donating financially. Warren Gray, partner at Solid Green, says that the intention is for the company to continue its involvement in the initiative as the model is replicated and rolled out.

“Jeppe Park Primary is the first school in South Africa to apply for a Green Star SA rating”, he says. “Because of this vision, the innovative educational model, and the fact that the school will be a living laboratory for green education and construction in the same space, people have been very willing to donate materials and professional expertise.”

Material donations include: reclaimed carpet flooring that was originally made from old fishnets; low-VOC paint; reclaimed tiles; and reclaimed insulation material (produced from recycled plastic fibre) for thermal and acoustic application throughout the build.

Sustainability in practice

Several innovative measures, employed because of the extremely low budget, contributed towards the Green Star SA rating, and significant cost savings were achieved by ensuring that the design was inherently materials-efficient. This included: using dry-wall offcuts, recycled wooden pallets and reclaimed wooden flooring in the library construction; using bricks and rubble from the demolition of existing internal structures to build a new entrance ramp and stairs; re-using broken and half bricks as paving; and using reclaimed corrugated sheeting as ceilings in the bathroom stalls. All new OSB boards in the atrium construction were placed to minimise offcut waste to almost 0%, and all timber support beams fit at standard length to reduce wastage to almost 0%.

As the school is located in Jeppe, which is an area with much recycling activity, most of the materials could be sourced within 200 m of the site. In addition, one-third of the total construction team that contributed to the build lives and works within the surrounding area.

Sustainability services provided by Solid Green relate primarily to indoor environmental quality, including lighting comfort (daylighting enhanced by efficient artificial lighting design), thermal comfort and acoustics. The team also compiled an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) and Waste Management Plan (WMP) for the construction phase confirming the reuse or recycling of 70% of construction and demolition waste. Energy reductions have been achieved by using low-energy-use fittings and Energy Star equipment, together with the metering of all major energy sources; water reduction has been realised with low-flow fittings and the metering of all major water fittings.

Nature forms a holistic part of the everyday life at the school. As well as indoor planting and a courtyard with recycled palette planters, the school has started growing vegetables to supplement the children’s lunches.

In addition to the future roll-out of more Streetlight Schools, the vision for this particular site is that the Africa School of Excellence Senior School will move in next to the primary school in 2017, and that it will follow the same model of green construction practices.

“It’s been fantastic to work with the Streetlight staff, professional team and donors on this project – people who are dedicated to making a real difference through their commitment to quality education for all”, Gray concludes. “It’s also been a tremendous learning experience in terms of getting things done with few resources on the tightest of budgets. We’re looking forward to being involved with the vision and roll-out of future Streetlight Schools in South Africa.”

@StrLightSchools @SolidGreen_SA

Media contact:
Karen Eicker
Apex Communications
+27 82 215 1361 / + 27 11 646 9200
karen@architectafrica.com

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