DISTRICT SCHOOL ST. PAULUS, HAMBURG, 2017
all-day care becomes a living space
The St Paulus district school in Hamburg shows how classrooms can be turned into feel-good places. Children from 34 nations study there from pre-school to tenth grade. Many of them spend more time in the open all-day school (OGS) than at home; and some of them even prefer it.
To do justice to this great importance, the district school grew in 2017. In an extension building - honored as new building of the year 2018 - our furniture opens up new learning spaces in which learners can develop freely and experience individualised learning support. After school, they offer sufficient space for a wide range of open all-day supervision programmes.
![st-paulus-forum Multifunktionales Forum im Schulgebäude](/Website/Lernr%C3%A4ume/Referenzen/Referenz_St.Paulus_Hamburg/image-thumb__7658__ratio-1-1-content-md-half-cover/st-paulus-forum.png)
Multifunctional forum as assembly hall, schoolyard and support room
The forum is the school's lively meeting place. From an architectural point of view, this initially refers to the existing building and the extension, which are connected by this space. In the same way, inter-year meetings between all members of the school community also take place here. There are benches where they can sit and socialise during breaks and free time. Differentiation rooms with groups of desks are available to them in glazed lodges. There, they can receive individualised support while learning and at the same time be close to the vibrant events by enabling visual relationships across room boundaries.
"Feeling accepted with all your strengths and weaknesses is a prerequisite for successful learning."
Extract from the school programme of the St. Paulus district school
Classrooms with flexible furnishings and differentiation areas
The classrooms are equipped to provide a lively and needs-orientated school day. The mobile classroom desks can be reorganised quickly from a frontal room structure to a group format, for example. Thanks to the multifunctional room design and the flexible furniture, it is possible to switch from lessons to all-day supervision on the fly. The individually combined cupboard walls are a rock in the surf of a busy school day: they offer all learners reliable storage space for their learning materials, sliding boards at eye level and at the same time protected differentiation areas for individual support. Materials for a wide range of leisure activities are quickly at hand in the afternoon supervision.
Quiet and reading areas as open spaces for all-day schools
In addition to the classrooms, the school building offers numerous feel-good places where pupils can freely develop their love of learning - this includes the library in particular. With its comfortable places to relax and work, it brings spatial variety to the school's all-day programme. Above all, it helps pupils to develop a love of reading, regardless of their family background. After all, it is sometimes strengthened reading and language skills that enable pupils to actively participate in social life. Individualised specialisation and support offers throughout the day open up additional educational opportunities for learners.
With its new premises, St Paul's School has become a living space that is as diverse as its pupils, giving them all a place to learn and grow. The journey there was moving: not only on the 20,000 kilometres that our team covered during the course of the project for consultation and implementation, but also in all the intensive and appreciative discussions with the school's teachers and students.