As school leaders approaching BSF or PCP, you'll have to grasp not only the three spatial dimensions of your new building - but also the vital fourth dimension, time. Join John Davitt as he learns from a group of cutting-edge "timetablists".

BSF offers the opportunity to learn from the past and build for the future. It also presents the challenge of how to make the most of this one-off opportunity. We know from experience you can't legislate to learn, or design the perfect learning space in a vacuum.

To any new school building, however delightful, we must always add the choreography of curriculum and the grammar of timetabling. In the end it is the interplay of space, subject and time that will determine how any learning opportunities proceed.

But are these parameters as fixed as we thought? With the publication of the latest guidance for school construction (BB98), and Building School for the Future exemplification work on school environments, might there be a little more freedom to do things in new ways, to free up time and space by doing things a little bit differently? Might the BB98 building guidance serve more as a compass than a straitjacket as schools plan new curricula and new learning spaces?

To answer this question, a group of visionary head teachers, curriculum clear-thinkers and timetabling specialists gathered in London for an inaugural meet at the end of 2008. Their aim was to find the correct 'grammar' to describe learning opportunities and lay them out in time, beyond the rigidities of "all year 9 doing science or PE on a Wednesday". 

Many of the speakers were convinced that if we can organise space, time, and movement in new ways in our schools, learning opportunities will be heightened, resources released into community learning and barriers to learning reduced.

The group was also aware that new ways of timetabling are hard to articulate, having something of the "fourth dimension" about them. Inspiration for the group's formation, and for their journey across this tricky and hard to articulate ground where time meets curriculum, came from Paul Mortimer (right), principal designate of the new Isle of Sheppey Academy.

Paul Mortimer introduced the day by describing the need for a "fuzzy logic" approach to some problems where you have to proceed using imprecise data if you are to move forward. He then went on to describe how creative timetabling and BB98 has allowed him to release funds to construct a school theatre - a much-needed community resource.

In part this was achieved by acknowledging that the school would be unable to house all students at the same time and to build the resource with time-shifting in mind. Paul now even uses Bloom's Taxonomy (a classification system for learning objectives) as a planning tool with architects – so that the space is defined at outset by the various learning uses to which it may be put.

The issue of individual subjects – and classroom land-grabs by particular departments – was also highlighted in the group, with the consensus emerging that the move will be towards "teachers of children, rather than subjects".

It was acknowledged by all that there will be tensions between trying to impose central order and the attempt to free schools up from past conventions of timetabling via departments that took away some of the flexibility to explore vertical streaming and a range of usage beyond the "subject silo".

Frank Green, chief executive of the Leigh Technology Academy, noted the success  with models of small schools and vertical timetables within the umbrella of a larger institution: "Four head teachers, three small schools," he noted within his own Academy. In past industrial models, said Frank, "It was necessary for only 20 percent of students to succeed in school to keep the economy afloat" –  but this has now been reversed and "80 percent must succeed at least!"

Beware hidden inflexibilities

William Cotterell, headteacher at Homewood School and Sixth Form Centre, Kent, described how the five-term year, and the June year start made space and time for a raft of other innovative pursuits including a nursery on site. In addition, he warned, even the best opportunities to extend the range and purpose of learning "can be squashed by inflexibilities in areas such as transport links". They are now looking at bus passes for students so they can stay later when needed.

Jackie Valin from Southfields Community College, Wandsworth runs a state comprehensive in a selective authority. The school has timetabled a literacy recovery programme with the provision of themed opportunities and with extra support phonics and English. When students are ready personalised time tables are provided. Jackie also articulated a key question for the group. "With students outside of school for large periods of time - how do we accredit the learning done and how does timetabling accommodate this."

In Shakepeare's Macbeth, the central character wonders if the very environment will give him away. He fears that "the very stones prate of my whereabout". Well, it turns out that the stones won't but the seats might. During the presentation of BSF from we heard from Beech Williamson, design manager at Partnerships for Schools, sensors in chairs will allow us to gather data on occupancy and movement.

At the start of his presentation, Beech (left)  said that schools should not be ruled by the schedules of accommodation at the back of BB98. His advice was to 'tear and throw'.  The key message for schools is that it doesn't have to be prescriptive or constraining.

Beech also described a range of building approaches and said that we are still short on concordances of behaviours and activities we want for our classrooms. In one sense  and these are probably as important as the cast off tables for space or the comb charts for checking the logic of traditional timetables.

At close we heard from Keith Johnson, a specialist in the art of time and space that "Timetabling by its nature is an activity in pursuit of the impossible – perfection".

But all agreed that this amalgam of  ideas was worth exploring more deeply and follow up meeting is to be arranged. Watch this space.

Anyone wishing to contribute to Paul Mortimer's group should send an email to bsfteam@ncsl.org.uk