Should a new school being built have a central staff room, for all staff, or smaller rooms for each department

Question

We are having a new school built, but the plans do not show a staff room, but several small departmental ones. Any good arguments either way ?

Answer 1

I would suggest that a central staff room would create a more unified atmosphere among the staff but it depends how big the school is. Teachers probably don't want to be walking to the other end of campus to get a coffee when they have 5 minutes before the next class.

Answer 2

If I was a teacher, I think I'd rather have a central staff room. If there are only departmental staff rooms, it will have the effect of segregating the staff.

On the other hand, perhaps some teachers would feel better if the staff rooms were for their department only, as they may be closer to those in their department and not feel comfortable eating lunch etc in front of teachers from all departments.

Hmmm this is an interesting one and I'm not sure now which way I'm swaying. Is there any way you could get the opinions of some other teachers from other schools before proceeding with the building plans?

I actually think a mixture would be good. Some small departmental ones, and one central one. I know teachers who prefer to eat their lunch in the classroom because certain other teachers that they hated were in the staff room!

xx Emmie

Answer 3

Smaller staff rooms means the teachers are located nearer their classes and students. It is easier to bring students in and talk to them.

But cross departmental communication will suffer. After all, students are organised into years and study many subjects. Do all the teachers of one year work together or all the maths teachers and so on go together.

The real issue is communication. you can sit next to some but not really work together. The main problem is to communicate now you need endless staff meetings, which waste too much time. But if everyone is together then no effort to have meetings is made, because it is assumed people will communicate with each other.

Finally, I don't like big staff rooms. They are not good if and when the school expands, they are fairly noisy and not very personal. It also means feuding teachers can easily be seperated.

Having seperate work rooms is probably a better idea, with a common lunch room and meeting halls.