Schools that remain unchanged for decades influence whether generations of young people feel included and can access educational entitlements. Physical spaces communicate who was imagined as inhabiting the spaces as learners and what kind of pedagogic choices and meaningful learning would happen. Attending to how inclusion was prioritised from the outset in the design of new vertical secondary schools can inform future builds. So too can attending to the lived experiences of students to understand how these inclusive aspirations were and were not yet being achieved. For individuals and groups, particularly those identifying as a marginalised or minority group, living with disability, identifying as gender nonconforming, or someone from a non-majority cultural or religious background, infrastructure that may be largely considered ‘inclusive’ for most, may also be experienced as exclusionary for those who do not fit within the assumptions about what inclusive facilities require. To attend to diverse experiences, inclusion is uniquely conceptualised in this study as combining capability and salutogenic theories. Capability acknowledges that an individual’s right to choose a life they value is more likely to be achieved when people can be, feel, and do things to achieve those valued aspirations with the resources in their environment (Sen, 1985). The salutogenic potential of school environments (Antonovsky, 1996, Franz 2019) including ease of navigation within the built environment (comprehensibility), full participation (manageability), and links to purposeful life choices (meaningfulness) informed the data analysis. Vertical schools, a new type of school in Australia, provide the context for this study. These multi-storey schools in urban settings occupy significantly smaller areas of land than traditional ‘horizontal’ schools. They differ sufficiently from traditional schools to require and enable new ways of thinking. Aspirations for inclusion that were designed into three vertical high schools from the outset are outlined alongside data from over 200 Year 8 students about their experiences as learners in these environments. Student annotated maps were analysed alongside architect and educational leader interviews in a qualitative thematic process. Particular attention was paid to data from students whose experience was not the same as others. Inclusive environments were evident when they were authentic, made sense and were easy to manage. Aspects where students had to work harder to manage the learning or themselves in the environment resulted in students making trade-offs between competing aspects of wellbeing and inclusion, a challenge in achieving SDG4a, where facilities need to be inclusive for all.

Antonovsky, A. (1996). The salutogenic model as a theory to guide health promotion. Health promotion international, 11(1), 11-18. Franz, J. (2019). Designing ‘Space’for Student Wellbeing as Flourishing. School spaces for student wellbeing and learning: Insights from research and practice, 261-279. Sen, A. (1985). Well-being, agency and freedom: The Dewey lectures 1984. The Journal of philosophy, 82(4), 169-221.