- Tuesday 20 August 2024
With the new school year approaching, it’s time to start setting up your classroom for the upcoming year.
If this is your first year in teaching and you have no idea where to start, or you’re an experienced teacher looking to improve your classroom layout and experience, you’ll find a number of helpful tips and ideas in this article.
Let’s start with the basics…
Largest ‘classroom areas’
If you need to rearrange pupils' desks or reconsider your main teaching hub for this year, now is the time to do it.
The larger areas of your classroom include the desk layout for your pupils, your desk, learning station areas, and walkways. Make sure you’ve planned accordingly and that your classroom is easy to navigate and teach within.
When it comes to desk layout, some popular choices include:
- Clusters (3–4 desks in a group)
- Two columns with multiple ‘rows’ that face the front of the classroom.
- A ‘U’ shape bordering the classroom
- ‘E’ shapes on either side of the classroom
Entry and exit points
People will be coming and going from your classroom all the time, so the more streamlined you can make this process, the better.
What should pupils do as soon as they enter the classroom, and what should they do when they’re leaving for lunch breaks or going home for the day?
How can you set these expectations and ensure they can find everything they need on their way out?
Management systems for teaching stations
If you’re planning on having mathematical or literacy rotations each week, or even having a library in your classroom, set these areas up in advance to make it easier to manage throughout the year.
Let’s say you’ll have four rotations per week, per lesson – can you create an area where activities are prepped in advance so that pupils can grab what they need for each rotation and start learning immediately?
Can you create themes for each rotation and store the materials, texts and instructions in folders or containers?
Another idea is to purchase a pocket chart or set up a whiteboard where you can outline the rotations each week and assign pupils to each group, so they know where they’re meant to go.
This practice could also be used for a classroom library. Books could be organised per level or topic, on two bookshelves (one for fiction, one for non-fiction) to make it easy for pupils to find texts that interest them.
By preparing reading levels in advance, you can assign pupils to reading level groups and allow them to choose texts that interest them each week.
Our box sets each contain a wide range of activity cards that can be organised and used for weekly rotations—check out some of the options below and consider purchasing in preparation for back to school:
- The Comprehension Box – includes 150 cards containing fiction and non-fiction texts.
- The Maths Box – includes 75 cards containing maths activities.
- Design & Technologies – contains seven projects in each theme and six copies of each card.
- The Literacy Box – contains activities for reading and comprehension practice, word study activities, as well as grammar and punctuation questions.
Foster classroom community
Your pupils and you are going to spend the entire year together – why not make it a fun and memorable experience?
Before you dive into Term 1, consider creating areas in your classroom where you can showcase and display the good work you do this year.
You could even have a calendar with pupils' birthdays so that you can celebrate together and acknowledge each pupil.
As you get to know your pupils better, you may even hang posters that you think they’ll find engaging and fun to learn from.
This gets to be a shared space for everyone to come and learn every day, and the more welcoming and personalised it feels, the more engaged pupils will be.
Front of the classroom
Since your pupils will spend most of their time facing the front of the classroom, make sure you put your most important information and learning support resources in that area.
Will you put a daily schedule up front so everyone knows what to expect?
Is there certain information you want them to refer back to each term? For example, maybe your pupils need support with spelling or maths.
Will you outline your expectations for classroom behaviour? We have some great posters available to purchase outlining classroom values and bullying tolerance policies.
Over to you
We hope this article gave you some great ideas for setting up your classroom and sparked excitement for the upcoming school term!
A positive classroom environment and setup can help to dispel any pupils’ worries and ease them into the new school year.
We'd love to hear from you! What are your top tips for making a classroom environment that breeds positivity, happiness, and learning?
