Digital & Innovative Education
Transforming Learning Spaces for the Future of Education
Seven measurable things about a classroom — light, temperature, air quality, ownership, flexibility, complexity and colour — explain 16% of the variation in a year's learning progress. This week you score your own room against all seven, and cost the changes worth making.
Duration5 days · 25 hrs
LanguageEnglish (B1+)
Group sizeMax 20
CertificateAttendance+ Europass Mobility
FundingErasmus+ eligible
AudienceAll school levels
Why this is Erasmus+ eligible
Structured, multi-day programme (5 days) with a pre-defined schedule and learning outcomes — not a passive lecture format.
Built around interaction: participants engage directly with the trainer and with peers from other countries throughout the course.
Transnational by design — open to participants travelling from outside the host country, a core requirement of Erasmus+ mobility funding.
Overview
A fresh coat of paint and some beanbags read as a redesigned classroom. The research behind genuinely effective learning-space design measures something narrower and far more testable, and most of it is not what a redesign usually spends money on.
Peter Barrett’s HEAD project at the University of Salford surveyed 153 classrooms in 27 primary schools and tracked the progress of 3,766 pupils aged five to eleven. Its finding, stated precisely, is that differences in the physical characteristics of classrooms explain 16 per cent of the variation in learning progress over a year. The report puts that in a more usable form: moving an average child from the least effective space to the most effective one is worth around 1.3 sub-levels, in a year where pupils typically make two.
The study was carried out in primary schools, and it matters where that limit sits. Light, air quality and a sense of ownership behave much the same at any age. The findings on colour and visual complexity shift as pupils get older, and adapting them upward is part of the week’s work rather than an afterthought.
What makes the study usable is that it names its variables: three principles — naturalness, individualisation and stimulation — with seven parameters underneath them, and a known weighting. Naturalness alone carries about half the measured effect, individualisation a little over a quarter, stimulation the rest. The week takes them in that order of importance.
Tuesday is light, temperature and air quality, which are also the cheapest things in the model to fix. Wednesday is ownership and flexibility, and what they mean in a room of sixteen-year-olds rather than six-year-olds. Thursday is stimulation, where the finding is counter-intuitive and often misread. The relationship is curvilinear: a room can be too stimulating as easily as too dull, so the useful question is usually what to take down rather than what to put up.
One room, scored twice, is what the week produces. A baseline against the seven parameters on Monday, a redesign scored again on Friday, and a plan that separates the changes costing nothing from the ones needing a budget and a signature. On the evidence, that second list is shorter than most schools expect.
Methodology
Your Own Room Is the Project
Every session is run on the participant's actual classroom, worked from photographs and its real constraints — which windows open, who controls the heating, what furniture may be moved — rather than on an idealised space.
Scored, Not Admired
The seven parameters are used as a measure throughout, so a redesign can be compared with the room it replaced instead of being judged on how it looks in a photograph.
Cheapest Levers First
The week follows the weighting the research found rather than the order a catalogue would suggest, which is why it starts with light and air quality and reaches furniture later.
What you'll take home
Score your own classroom against the seven design parameters and record a baseline you can compare against later.
Diagnose the naturalness set — light, temperature and air quality — in your own room, and know what to ask for and who to ask.
Redesign ownership and flexibility within a real budget, adapted to the age group you actually teach.
Apply the curvilinear stimulation finding: decide what to remove from a room, not only what to add, and defend the decision with the evidence.
Daily programme
- Icebreaker: "Let's Dream and Connect Together" — sharing ideas about ideal learning spaces
- The HEAD project: 153 classrooms, 27 primary schools, 3,766 pupils aged five to eleven — and what "explains 16% of the variation in learning progress" does and does not mean
- The SIN principles — naturalness, individualisation, stimulation — and the seven parameters underneath them, with the weight each principle carries
- Why the stimulation finding is curvilinear, and why "more colour" is the most common wrong conclusion drawn from this research
- Practicum: each participant scores their own classroom against the seven parameters from their photographs, and records the baseline they will design against
- Warm-up in pairs: name the one physical thing about your own classroom that bothers you most, then the room sorts the answers into light, temperature, air and noise — regrouping the group and building today's agenda from it
- Why naturalness carries about half of the whole measured effect, and why it is also the cheapest half
- Light: daylight, glare and orientation — and what can be done in a room whose windows cannot be moved
- Temperature and air quality: how to tell whether your room actually has a problem rather than assuming it does
- Working session: building a simple audit routine a teacher can run in their own room over one week, using nothing but observation and a timetable
- Who to ask and what to ask for: the caretaker, the head teacher, the local authority — and which requests tend to succeed
- Warm-up: "Learning in Flexible Spaces" — discussing what actually makes a space flexible
- Ownership: what makes a room feel like the pupils', and why displaying their own work is not decoration
- Flexibility: the difference between furniture that is movable and a room that is genuinely reconfigurable by a class in two minutes
- Adapting upward: how ownership and flexibility change between a class of six-year-olds and a class of sixteen-year-olds, where the primary-school evidence needs translating
- Working session: redesigning your own room's ownership and flexibility on paper, inside your real budget, then reviewed in pairs
- Warm-up: discussing how digital and physical spaces work against each other in most classrooms
- Complexity and colour in practice: displays, walls and ceilings, and the point at which a room tips from stimulating into noisy
- The quiet audit: a structured pass over your own photographs deciding what to take down
- Inclusion and sensory needs: where the seven parameters and inclusive design agree, and the cases where they pull in opposite directions
- The digital layer as physical objects: screens, devices, cabling and charging — what they do to sightlines, glare and the flexibility built on Day 3, and the sustainable choices that cost nothing
- Each participant presents their redesign scored against the seven parameters, with the baseline from Day 1 beside it
- Critique in small groups: which single parameter would give this specific room the largest gain for the least money, and what the group would cut from the plan
- Revision time: participants amend their own plan and costings before taking them home
- Course evaluation and reflection on learning
- Certification ceremony
Please note: sessions run from 09:30 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, with a break for lunch. Timings can shift a little to suit the venue and the group. If you'd like a specific topic covered, let us know when you apply — the confirmed day-by-day schedule is sent to registered participants ahead of the course.
Certificate: we issue the Certificate of Attendance to everyone who's present for at least 80% of the course — tracked with the daily sign-in sheet (see Certificate & assessment).
Equipment: a few of our courses ask participants to bring a laptop — check the day-by-day programme above, or ask us if you're not sure.
Need a formal invoice or proforma for your school's records? Ask us — we issue official invoices with the participant's name and course details.
Course page last updated: 4 September 2026
Materials & tools
Barrett and colleagues, Clever Classrooms: Summary Report of the HEAD Project (University of Salford, 2015) — the study the week is built on, published free of charge and worked with directly from Day 1
A seven-parameter scoring sheet for your own classroom, built on Day 1 and completed again on Day 5
A costed redesign plan separating the changes that cost nothing from those needing a budget and approval
Your own classroom photographs, used as the working material of every session
Certificate & assessment
This is a Certificate of Attendance, not an exam-based qualification — recognition comes from completing the structured programme, not from passing a test. The real, lasting value is in the competencies listed above under What you'll take home.
Type your name above — clearly marked "SAMPLE" in the PDF, not an official document.
The real certificate is signed by your trainer and EMA's authorised signatory. Your own signature isn't on this document — it's captured separately, on the Europass Mobility document.
Need to verify a real certificate? Check it online using the serial number and participant's full name, or contact us directly — [email protected], OID E10304561.
Attendance
Tracked using a sign-in sheet with one signature per participant per day (paper or digital). This record is used to issue your Certificate of Attendance and Europass Mobility document. View sign-in sheet (PDF)
Output
Every participant leaves with a completed Dissemination & School Impact Plan — a step-by-step template for applying the course back at your school (see below).
Feedback
An end-of-course evaluation form is sent to every participant after the course ends — a chance to reflect on what you've learned and how you'll apply it, and it helps us keep improving the course for future participants.
Your paperwork
Keep your travel tickets, boarding passes and (if you used green travel) any related receipts — your school or National Agency may ask for these for their own Erasmus+ reporting.
How to prepare
Bring photographs of your own classroom — several angles, taken on an ordinary day rather than a tidied one. Every session works on your room, and a tidied photograph hides exactly the things the week is looking for.
Bring what you know about its constraints: which windows open, who controls the heating, what furniture you are allowed to move, and what budget exists, if any. A redesign that ignores these is the one that never happens.
No design background is needed. The seven parameters are introduced on Day 1 and used as a checklist from then on.
Practical information
Registration & documents
Not sure how registering works or what paperwork is involved? See our full Registration & Documents guide — from applying to your Certificate of Attendance, in one place.
Invitation letter
Need a formal invitation letter for your school or embassy? Request one — we send it within 2 business days. See a sample (PDF).
Learning Agreement
Prepared by our staff and sent to you and your school once your registration form is submitted — see what it looks like. See a sample (PDF).
Billing & invoicing
We issue official invoices/proformas with the participant's name and course details — ask us. Payment is due in full by bank transfer before the course start date. See a sample (PDF).
Airport transfer
Guidance on getting from the nearest airport to the venue is included in your welcome information.
Accommodation
We can recommend partner hotels close to the venue in the host city — ask us when you apply.
For your school / proposal
School impact
After completing this Digital & Innovative Education course, the participating staff member can transfer outcomes directly to their school: a short briefing for colleagues sharing the key takeaways, applying relevant tools or strategies from the programme in their own role, and inclusion of the course materials in the school's professional development resources — turning one person's mobility into a wider institutional gain that supports the school's European Development Plan. Use the Dissemination & School Impact Plan below to fill in your own — it saves as you go and can generate a one-page summary for your coordinator too.
0/5 sections started
Write your answers in English — it keeps every teacher's plan consistent if your coordinator compares several.
Filling these in ties this plan to a specific mobility — useful if your coordinator collects plans from several courses/teachers.
Staff-room dissemination session
Step 1 of 5
Photos of the session or sign-in sheet are embedded straight into both PDFs — they aren't autosaved, so re-attach them if you reload this page. The link above IS autosaved.
If you're presenting, base it on the course materials — a summary slide for colleagues rarely needs more than 15–20 minutes.
Classroom or institutional application
Step 2 of 5
Name the real class, year group or school process you'll apply this to — not the course topic itself.
Institutional resource management
Step 3 of 5
School / European Development Plan link
Step 4 of 5
Give the admin a one-page summary: what the course delivered, the cost, how it feeds into the school plan, and the expected outcome.
Follow-up & impact check-in
Step 5 of 5
Your check-in date is before the planned application date in Step 2 — check-ins usually happen a few months after you've actually applied the course, so there's something real to report.
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After the course
Participants will receive their certificates (Certificate of Attendance + Europass).
Participants will complete a general course evaluation and event survey.
Participants will receive course materials, videos, photos, and PDF documents in both digital and print formats.
Follow-up support: an email group is created for idea exchange, self-evaluation materials are provided, and participants receive a follow-up check-in after 3 months — by which point the no-cost changes have usually been made, and the useful question is whether the score moved.
Frequently asked
This course is an eligible training activity under Erasmus+ Key Action 1 (School Education Mobility) — the course fee, travel and subsistence fall within the eligible cost categories. Whether it is covered depends on your own project's approved grant agreement and your National Agency's rules; we provide all the invoices, attendance records and certificates your National Agency requires for reporting.
B1 is enough — you do not need to be fluent. Trainers speak slowly and plainly, every session is built around doing something rather than sitting and listening, and groups are mixed by nationality so people help each other out. A rough test: if you could follow a staff meeting held in English and ask a question in it, you will be fine here.
Absolutely — group bookings of 3+ from one school receive priority placement, and we can schedule a dedicated session for groups of 12 or more.
Our courses run on request at our centres in Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin, Budapest, Bremen and Rome. Tell us your preferred city and dates and we will arrange a session.
Tuition, all course materials, both certificates (attendance + Europass Mobility) and a half-day guided tour of the host city with a local guide. Flights, accommodation and travel insurance are booked separately — we send a vetted hotel list.
You can move to any later session free of charge. Cancellations made 30+ days before the start date receive a full refund; a reduced refund applies closer to the date — see our full Cancellation & Refund Policy for the exact schedule.
€80/day€400 total · 5 days
Choose your session
+ 3 more planned dates
No payment now — we confirm your place first.
Plans change — we're here to help.
Don't see a date that works? Request a custom date
What's included
25 hours of training & materials
Certificate of attendance
Europass Mobility document
Half-day guided city tour with a local guide
Not included
International flights / travel to the host city
Accommodation
Travel & health insurance
Questions? Message us on WhatsApp
Registered Erasmus+ provider · OID E10304561
Where our participants come from
Aggregated across all EMA courses, not specific to this session.
Romanian
23%
Polish
14%
Lithuanian
10%
Spanish
7%
Portuguese
7%
+ educators from 19 more countries across Europe and beyond
Taking two courses? Book any two EMA courses on the same trip and save €150 off your combined price. Just tell us both course names when you apply — no separate booking needed.
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