Can panoptic school infrastructure lead to disruptive and dangerous student behaviour which makes schools unsafe?

Having safe schools is of the upmost importance, but evidence has shown that school buildings often do not achieve this and that the most disadvantaged students get the worst provision. This research examines whether school buildings can create the conditions for disruptive behaviour. Using the example of the UK’s 21st Century Schools Programme, which has a guiding principle to improve educational outcomes and attendance, interviews with pupils and school staff were analysed using Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon to explore whether panoptic school buildings that focus on students’ supervision can unintentionally create the conditions for disruptive student behaviour. Both school staff and pupils described incidents where pupils had been excluded from school because of disruptive and dangerous behaviour. If we are to build schools that improve educational outcomes, we need to consider how we construct schools that ensure students are not encouraged to engage in disruptive and dangerous behaviour.