Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

Rain struck the new canopy so fiercely that conversation had to rise above it. Yet nobody gathered bags or searched for an empty classroom. Lunch continued: a chess match occupied one table, singers rehearsed beside another and a group of Year 7 pupils persuaded an older student to explain a card game. The weather had become a roof sound rather than an instruction to leave.

This is what the covered courtyard has given the school: a centre. Corridors carry people towards lessons and classrooms divide them by subject and year, but the courtyard mixes everyone together. From my usual seat, I have watched friendships begin with requests to borrow a chair. I have heard a half-finished song gain an audience and seen revision notes spread across a table until strangers started testing one another. The space invites pupils to be visible to each other.

Some school improvements disappear into walls, wires and locked offices. This one fills with voices every lunchtime. The canopy does more than resist rain; it allows the life of the school to remain outdoors, in view, even when the clouds arrive. We asked for shelter. What we gained was a meeting place.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

Visit the covered courtyard after lunch, once the official photographs have been taken. Chairs block the path to the science building. Cartons roll beneath the tables. A notice asking pupils to keep the doors clear is hidden behind a queue stretching from the food counter. The polished images show a busy new facility; the abandoned trays show who must deal with it next.

Nor has the canopy created extra space. It has concentrated hundreds of pupils in a courtyard that was once a quieter route across the school. Conversations compete with music, football commentary and the drumming roof. Where should a pupil go to eat peacefully? How quickly can a wheelchair user cross the crowd? Calling the courtyard a shared space does not mean that everyone experiences it equally.

The project required money, supervision and daily cleaning. Those choices deserve more attention than the cheerful claim that the school has gained a social centre. Pupils needed more places to eat, but one crowded enclosure has narrowed their choices instead of widening them. I would return the courtyard to being an open route and spend the next budget on several smaller lunch areas. A successful photograph is not evidence of a successful school day.