Comfort is defined through human senses; sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Each sense can lead to a greater or lesser degree of comfort. However, children experience comfort differently than adults. They experience spaces differently and have different knowledge about the performance of a building than adult users; they can also have a perspective on design quality unlike that of the architect. School is a designed environment that a child lives in for over 6 hours a day; it is it is thus argued simply a matter of a child’s right to be consulted about his or her day-to-day environment. However, the reasons that children are not included in post-occupancy evaluations include a trend towards the standardization of methods in order to collect data comparable for building types; a persistent prejudice against the value of children’s experiences, deeming children unreliable research participants; and simply the difficulty in developing methods appropriate for children, apart from the typical research methods of interviews and questionnaires. Designing a tool that includes children’s perspectives has value not only in terms of improving building performance, and thereby energy performance, but also in delivering the educational objectives of schooling and in ensuring health and wellbeing at both the physical and developmental levels. Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is well known for its effects on children’s health, wellbeing, and educational performance, for example, and daylighting has been proved as equally important. Design and space provision is a slightly more ambiguous issue in determining linkages with educational performance; nevertheless, studies have examined this; the question of different comfort levels and designing to children’s comfort levels in school tends to be limited to specific medical or developmental issues and Special Needs. This research critically examines literature on the subject of comfort and explores research which determines difference between comfort levels of children and adults. The research provides the first stage in a project which will examine contemporary high-performing, energy-efficient schools built within the last five years in Iowa. The research develops and pilots a building performance assessment tool for schools: firstly, to evaluate the performance of new schools in Iowa in terms of environmental quality, design quality and energy performance - the immediate value of which is in remedying design flaws or building management issues (and may encourage sustainable behaviors) [4] - and; secondly, to collect an evidence base for designing child centered learning spaces and school buildings; the value of which suggests improved educational performance, psychosocial development and wellbeing.