Classroom Organisation

Introduction

Everything about the organisation of a classroom has an influence on the effectiveness of the space for learning and the management of behaviour. As a teacher you may have a lot or very little control over how the classroom is organised.

Layout

Unless you are lucky enough to influence the building of a brand new classroom the position of doors, windows, built-in cupboards, sinks and sockets etc will be all be fixed and will limit the possible organisation of moveable furniture such as desk layout. In specialised classrooms such as those used for computing, science and technology all furniture may be permanently fixed. The position of white boards particularly interactive white boards (IWB) can limit options for the organisation of students when directly teaching, demonstrating and modelling. Other considerations are direct sunlight into the classroom and how this affects student's ability to see the IWB and also the ambient temperature. The acoustic quality of a classroom can be particularly dependent on the ratio of hard and soft surfaces. Schools built in the 19th and early 20th centuries often have very high ceilings which tend to distort sound. Blinds, carpet, felt display boards and soft furnishings can all help to absorb sound and reduce reverberation. Classrooms fitted with Sound Field Systems provide the best acoustic support for all students.

Moveable furniture

When you have complete freedom to rearrange furniture; such as that enjoyed by most primary classteachers; then you have the opportunity to mould the classroom to reflect your own ideas of what will create an effective and efficient learning space for the age range of children being taught. Space is always limited and compromise is always necessary to create a layout that works for the range of activities and teaching methods that are used daily. Creating book corners, imaginative play areas, free-flow activity areas and carpet areas may be essential if you are teaching younger children. Equally desk arrangements that strike a balance between the need for all students to face and listen to the classteacher but also enable collaborative working to be possible are often essential for older children. 

Storage and access to resources including the students' own belongings during lessons must be considered. An arrangement that reduces the need for unnecessary student movement during the lesson is often desirable. Equally, developing autonomy and engendering independent learning means enpowering students to access resources as needed.

Reflection Points

How fixed is your classroom?

What influence do you have over the layout?

How does the layout support or hinder student learning?

What improvements would you wish for?

Is the classroom set up to meet your needs or the students?

What actions, if any, do you feel you need to take to optimise the layout?

Student Seating

Beyond the first one or two years of schooling children will spend increasing amounts of their time sat at desks. There are numerous factors to consider when deciding who sits next to who. These include: friendships, ability, individual learning needs, social tensions and sensory needs.

Friendships

Students will generally choose to sit next to their friends just as their teachers do when they go on training courses. Even as mature adult professionals we like the security of sitting with a colleague or friend as much as any opportunity to have a chat with them. We tend to feel more confident in expressing any misunderstanding about the learning to a friend or asking our colleague to clarify a task, 'What did they say we had to do?' We are also very good at making whispered remarks about whether the learning or task is relevant for us or a complete waste of our time! When we reflect on our own adult experience as learners we can recognise a number of benefits for children in being arranged in friendship pairings:

feeling safe
more confident
more collaborative
assist one another
share resources fairly

Allowing students to sit with their friends is, of course, not without risks. Less popular students can be left standing and/or uncertain where to sit in the initial self-selection of seating. Some students, with immature understanding of friendships and those with social-communication needs may make poor choices. Some students may be more likely to engage in off-task behaviour when next to friends. (Though these same students may still seek out their friends across the classroom when not seated together!)

Ability

In any class there will generally be a wide range of what we loosely describe as 'ability'. How we organise seating has an impact on our options for differentiation in the class and the capacity of students to support each other. 

When the class is divided in to groups of similar ability the students in each seating arrangement generally require the same input, task and support. This can make lesson organisation easier as resources can be shared, adults can support the whole group rather than individuals and as students are working on the same learning activity they can discuss and collaborate on tasks. There is good evidence that the most able students can benefit from opportunities to work with similar gifted and talented peers particularly when giving open-ended tasks. 

When students are sat in groups of mixed ability there may be times when they are working on different tasks or activities to those sat with them. This can be useful when wanting to assess independent working such as during a test. Paired or group work involving mixed ability provides an opportunity for the more more able student to support their less able peer. Some students often respond better to support from peers than from adults and so this can be an effective way of differentiating support for the task. Equally, more able students often benefit from this arrangement as the process of explaining to a peer reinforces and extends their own learning. However, there can often be a risk that the more able student will dominate the task and though the less able may complete the task successfully they may actually gain little or no actual learning. (This can also happen when students are supported by adults who focus on task completion rather than learning!)

Individual Learning Needs

In most cohorts of students up to about a quarter of them will have some specific difficulty with learning or behaviour for learning that has some impact on their ability to function successfully in the classroom. For most students this will translate in to 'ability' as discussed above. However, for a few students their needs require further consideration of where best to seat them.

Students with attention and concentration difficulties such as those with ADHD may be easily distracted by movement within and outside the classroom. Seating them close to the front of the class away from windows may reduce visual stimuli and make it easier for the teacher to keep close supervision over them. However, there is a risk that these students increasingly gain teacher time which can form a negative cycle of prompts, reminders and students not developing strategies for managing their needs themselves.

Students who are not native language speakers, such as English as Additional Language (EAL) children in UK may also need special consideration. Seating these students next to a friend or a more able student can be an essential part of the support needed. Ensuring that they have a clear view of the teacher and anything physical or visual being demonstrated or modelled by the teacher is also important. This could equally apply to any student with language acquisition needs.

Some students with social-communication needs may benefit from being partnered with more confident and supportive peers. Others though, such as some ASD students may need times when they are seated away from peers in order to help regulate their anxiety and/or sensory needs.

Social Tensions

The social dynamics of a cohort or class can present additional considerations. There will be the inevitable falling in and out of friendship that some students appear more prone to and this can wreck what was previously the 'perfect' seating plan. When parents become involved and start demanding that 'I don't want my child sat next to X' there is added pressure. Managing these fickle friendships can often be achieved through small tweaks in seating arrangements that do not necessarily need to impact on arrangement for any ability or mixed ability grouping. Sometimes not making any changes can work and supporting these students to work through their difficulties and focus on their learning is enough.

Sensory Needs

Clearly in any seating plan the management of students with sight or hearing difficulties is a priority. In most mainstream settings these students are unlikely to be completely blind or deaf but instead have some significant degree of impairment that affects them on a daily basis. Having a good understanding of their specific sensory needs will help to ensure that they are placed within the classroom where they can maximise the use of their senses and/or any sensory aids available. Speaking to the student and parents and reading any relevant reports is essential as each child needs will be different. 

In addition to students with visual or hearing impairments there will be students with sensory processing differences that impact on where they can be positioned in the classroom. See the article on Sensory Needs for more detailed information. Students with diagnoses of ASD will have sensory differences that raise their anxiety levels or overly distract them from their learning. For example, many are hypersensitive to sound and can often struggle with filtering out ordinary background noises such as computer and projector fans. Many find loud noises painful to listen to. Some of these students may have reports often referred to as Sensory Diets that detail their needs. ADHD students are also likely to have sensory differences that impact on their capacity to sit and concentrate. For example, hyposensitivity of the vestibular and proprioceptive senses increase the need for movement particularly when cognitively challenged by learning. ADHD students are also more likely to be easily distracted by visual movements and may concentrate better when faced away from movement areas either inside or outside the classroom.

Reflection Points

Does your current seating plan meet the needs of all the students? How do you know?

Is the plan fixed or does it change depending on the nature of the lesson task?

Are students happy with where they are sat? Are you?

How does the seating layout influence student engagement with the IWB, class discussions and paired work?

Do you negotiate where students sit or impose your own seating plan?

Access to resources

The smooth running of a lesson requires students to have everything they need for task completion quickly and easily available. Where possible and practical to do so resources should be circulated before the lesson starts. This can be everything from the humble pencil, paper and ruler to specific text books and apparatus related to the learning intention. Where students need to retrieve resources such as exercise books from trays or bags, for the lesson, it is better to do this at the beginning of the lesson before the learning input. Avoiding unnecessary disruption during the lesson is essential as these interruptions interfere with students' working memory leading to some or complete loss of previously given instructions and learning input.

Some students may be particularly bad at organising themselves and more likely to forget resources that they are personally responsible for such as a pen and pencil. This is likely to include students with ADHD and those from complex families or who have social disadvantages. Communicating annoyance or disappointment to these students will always have a negative impact on their learning. Instead, it is better to plan for this by having resouces that can be loaned for the lesson. Knowing which students are likely to need resources and empowering them to be able to access these easily and shamelessly is ultimately a win-win situation. This is particularly so for teenage students who are extremely sensitive to negative criticism and need to 'save face' in front of peers.

Reflection Points

How often do students need to get resources after the learning input? And when this happens do you find yourself needing to repeat task instructions again?

Which students routinely forget the things they need?

How accessible are everyday items like paper, pencil sharpeners, rulers and erasers etc?

How accessible are other learning resources that may be needed less often such as card, dictionaries or maths apparatus?

Do any supporting adults in the lesson know what resources are needed and when? Are they empowered to get them ready at an appropriate time?