Grafton High School

The new Grafton High School represents the first major milestone in implementing the district-wide Master Plan developed by SMMA. Serving 900 students, with the design flexibility of accommodating up to 1,200, the new 187,000-square-foot Grafton High School provides advanced educational spaces developed around a forward-thinking philosophy and flexible cluster (pod) plan approach. These pods are designed and organized to reinforce the tenets of 21st Century career skills: collaboration, communication, creativity critical thinking, and problem solving. The school was programmed and designed with a focus on 1:1 technology.

The design sought to make the learning environment and physical environment one and the same.

Classrooms support student-centric learning, utilizing four teaching walls and multiple learning zones, rather than the traditional teacher-centric, “stand-and-deliver” orientation. The classroom pods create small learning communities with adjacencies and shared, multidisciplinary spaces that facilitate project-based, hands-on, and interdisciplinary learning.

Although the current organizational structure is departmental, the flexibility of the design allows for pod orientation to change with simple room name changes—STEM program spaces are designed to function within a variety of pod configurations.

Transparency, permeability, liveliness, flexibility—these are all hallmarks of the student commons.

This space merges the social and academic needs of students. Three primary community spaces are linked by the commons: the auditorium/theater, the gymnasium, and the media center. The space bridges the inside and outside world, linking main entrance, stadium, outdoor dining, and classrooms.

The school and site were designed and constructed to exceed Massachusetts Collaborative for High-Performance Schools (MA-CHPS) requirements for sustainability.

The Town hosted numerous community meetings and design charrettes, including ones for sustainability, involving community members, parents, and students, many of which were televised. The students, particularly, were heavily involved in the discussion of how they would use technology, leading to the 1:1 implementation and focus on informal learning environments.

Although the iPad had not been invented when the school was planned and designed, it was natural inclusion into the curricula.

The school embodies the Town’s commitment to promoting 1:1 learning, while utilizing the latest state-of-the-art technologies to facilitate such an approach. Every student and teacher has been given an iPad and a year of preparation of curriculum revisions and professional development, to ensure the program’s success.