Ever wondered how the way the classroom is set out impacts on children’s experience of being in school, indeed of their learning?
Could you move the chairs and tables around? Are the chairs comfortable? Could the children be responsible for what is up on the walls? What about children creating learning dens?
Heard a great presentation today from a group of students who were exploring how we can create meaningful opportunities for children in school. They focused on children’s participation in shaping their classroom. What stood out was the extent to which it was so easy to identify barriers that could stop us, as adults, giving children a voice on shaping the classroom.
There are a number of schools and educational approaches that highly value investing in ensuring the classroom space is ‘child friendly’, but it was really exciting to hear about projects in which individual teachers had decided to ‘just give it a go’ and to try out involving children in shaping the classroom.
Indeed, maybe it is just as easy to come up with a solution to the list of challenges that we could place in the way of us engaging children - ‘just give it a go’.
So - ‘give it a go’!
(More on the themes in this post to follow)
