How and Why Classrooms are organised in Particular Ways?

According to Pollard (2002), classroom organisation is creating an environment that will demonstrate a teacher’s experiences, values and attitudes. The classroom is able to open or close opportunities for children and give them messages about a teacher’s expectations which will indicate to them how they should conduct themselves.

Moreover, Pollard (2002) in his paper stated:

“Effective classroom management and organisation is vital in implementing plans for learning. By this, we mean the way in which the classroom and class is structured in order to facilitate teaching and learning. For such teaching and learning to succeed, classroom organisation and management strategies must relate to values, aims, requirements and curriculum plans as a whole and also to practical circumstances. If an appropriate coherence can be achieved, then the teacher and the children should benefit from having a common framework within which to work.(p.1)”

There is no one way to organise and run classrooms. At Walnut Tree Walk Primary School Kennington, classes are generally organised into teaching units within Key stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Each class contains children of mixed ability taught as a separate year group. Each class has a teacher who is responsible for the organisation, planning of schemes of work and monitoring progress of the children in that class. Sometimes classes have the opportunity to be taught by another teacher for some subject areas (e.g. music). The classrooms I observed say a great deal about the teacher, and that is a major reason for ensuring it is the result of careful planning. I spent a day of my observation week with a Year 3 skilled and experienced teacher and held an interview session with her at the end of the school day. I asked her what she was thinking, when she organised her classroom the way it is and she said;

“After I had my class list with over thirty children in it, my first thought was the best way to arrange the tables in the limited space I have. Then I thought about leaving a designated area for whole-class carpet sessions, positioning the tables to see the board so I can have a full view of the children from the front of the class. I also thought about the range of abilities in the class and decided to make the quickest writers sit at the back tables, the needy children sit nearer the board, leaving the far-end table for the statement children in the class. This is done to provide enough space for the classroom assistant or other adult working with the children without distracting the rest of the class (See appendix one and two). The children were also grouped within the class for literacy, numeric and reading. This enables me to work with a group of learners together, rather than working with them individually."

Reflecting on the lessons, I did not observe a small-group teaching take place. Though I witnessed a whole class teaching on the carpet and the children were sent off to their ability groups to continue their activities. The teacher worked with individual children in groups and managed the whole class (QTS 2.7). Her classroom assistant also did individual teaching to children on the SEN table and I sat with a group and taught some of the children on the table individually.

The move to group seating in English primary schools is generally associated with the Plowden Report of 1967 and seems to have become normal practice by the early seventies (Bealing, 1972). The Plowden Report (1967) advocated individualisation of learning, but recognised a practical difficulty. If all teaching were on an individual basis, only seven or eight minutes a day would be available for each child. The report therefore advised teachers to economise by 'teaching together a small group of children who are roughly at the same stage'. Unfortunately, research on classroom grouping practices provides little support for this rosy picture. A major finding is that although most children sit in groups, for the great majority of the time they work as individuals on their own, individual, tasks, In other words, pupils work in groups, but not as groups. (Pollard, 2000) Further, whilst working in groups the amount of task-related talk is low, interactions tend to be short, and the opportunity to cooperate is slim. Finally, there appears to be a clear sex effect in interaction. The great majority of talk is between pupils of the same sex, even in mixed-sex groups (Galton et al 1980). The most recent of such studies, the incomplete reproduction of the ORACLE project undertaken in 1996, reports its findings using the same sentence as used in the original study: children were "seated in groups around flat- topped tables or decks drawn together to form working surfaces" (Galton, Hargreaves, Comber, Wall & Pell, 1999, p41).

Since 1996, further major curriculum changes and anecdotal evidence suggests that variation from this mode of classroom organisation remains limited, despite some pronounced changes in pedagogy and in the proportions of time children spend in whole class, collaborative and individual learning tasks. (Hastings & Wood, 2000)

I spent another half- day with the reception teacher of Walnut Tree School, Kennington. Unlike the Year 1 to 6 classrooms, they have two big rooms and a playground to themselves. This is similar to the kind of set-up in the nursery class. The indoor and outdoor `classrooms` are organised to give children plenty of space to move around, to work on the floor and on the tabletops, individually and in smaller and larger groups. Resources are well organised and labelled so that children know where to find what they need and can be independent. This means adults can spend more time joining in with children's learning extending their language and thinking and helping them make progress. She reviewed the Foundation Stage curriculum and the five examples of curriculum plans from a range of setting, together with descriptions of how practitioners have gone about developing a planning process that works for them in their setting. The long-term plan is a way of ensuring that all six areas of learning are given equal emphasis and that all aspects of learning within the six areas are covered regularly and frequently (Curriculum Guidance for Foundation Stage, 2001). Comparing the knowledge gained from this discussion with the informal sessions I had with the year 5, 3 and 2 teachers. This has helped secure my Knowledge of the QCA/DFEE Curriculum guidance for the foundation stage, the National Curriculum, the frameworks and the methods and expectations set out on the National Numeracy and Literacy Strategies ( Q.T.S 2.1; 2.3). Before I left the reception teacher, I asked why she organised the classroom in the way it is set and she replied;

“Simply to follow the standard set in the curriculum guidance and frameworks.”

The learning environment I observed in reception class was more play oriented and provided opportunities for children to work together and share resources and the attention of adults (see appendix three). Though the learning intention of the lesson observed was 'For the children to know where they live', the tasks include constructing their houses with bricks, Lego, cartons or drawing pictures of houses. The flexible nature of the curriculum still provided for other planned play activities as playing with containers in water, the home corner, learning activities on computer and the book corner. Through this supported play, children can explore, develop and use their curiosity and imagination to help them make sense of the world in a secure environment.

On the other hand, a second and powerful argument for group seating is that it encourages collaboration and supports the interactions and discussions through which learning happens. The case for collaboration in learning, drawn from theory and from research, is strong and generally accepted - at least in principle- among primary educators. If children are to work together, their working environment needs to support collaboration and a group layout, in which a number of children sit around one working surface. (Hastings & Wood 2002)

According to Bruner & Vygotsky, collaborative work enhances learning and helps to boost child's self-confidence and self-esteem. For example, reciting numbers in unison encourage children who are beginning to learn numbers in order.

Before I started my training as a beginning teacher, I taught a year1/2 class and was faced with the task of organising and managing my class in a suitable way. The Head teacher had encouraged teachers to use their classrooms in a manner that best matches their purposes and the space and resources available. So I walked round the classroom, mapped out where I would like the teacher's table to be, the whole class carpet session area to be close to my table, then I figured out where my able group, middle-ability and low ability groups tables will be in the classroom. In the centre of the room I placed the children (SEN) that needed more support from the teacher, classroom assistant or other adults. The bilingual children formed part of the four groups depending on their ability. These groups were not fixed because I saw the need to move children from one group to another as they progress or not progress in learning. I separated some children from being together as it affected their learning behaviour. Lastly I organised the resources into literacy resource section, numeracy resource section and teacher's resource section. There was also a reading corner and a section for the children's trays and books (see appendix four). I really liked my horseshoe arrangement because it gave me a full view and attention of all the children. I was able to differentiate the children’s group activities and work with them as groups. The arrangement was most suitable for individual, paired and whole-class work (quiet work).

I have since made progress from this experience through my one week school observation and the debriefing lecture held by John Cook, the lecture by Anna Ferris, titled "Bilingual and Multilingual children" and the lectures on group teaching, “How to work with other adults” and pedagogy held by Anne Robertson, Tony Russell and Anne Clowne. I would like to improve upon some of my practices by trying out some new ideas gained such as subject ability groupings in literacy, maths and science. I would focus more on the bilingual and multilingual children performance and assess their needs closely and operate a more flexible approach in my next practice. This will be by keeping some children seated in group formation during their paired or individual work but rotating every one to ensure they all had the chance to operate in different arrangements. I also realise I have to improve upon the way I work with the other adults in the classroom. I am now more conscious and critical of pupil’s thoughts as the lectures on pedagogy have made me aware of what researches tell us about child development and constructing knowledge. I also now realise the benefits of group work for pupils and how to improve the effectiveness of pupil groups in the classroom. (Q.T.S 1.1; 1.2; 1.6; 1.7; 2.5; 2.6; 2.7)

Conclusion

The classroom cannot function well without the teacher. The success of the activities in the classroom depends on the ability of the teacher as classroom manger. He takes care of the two aspects of classroom management, namely, care of routine factors abd classroom activities. The prospective teacher will gain a lot from serious study of the suggestions, principles, and practices of classroom management given in this paper. Constructive measures of discipline are worth trying in solving disciplinary problems in the classroom.

Bibliography:

DFEE (2000) Curriculum Guidance for Foundation Stage, HMSO

DFEE/QCA (2000) The National Curriculum: Handbook for Primary Teachers in England. HMSO

Johnson. F. & Jamison .J (1998). The Impact of Class Size. An interim research summary.

Hastings & Wood (2002). Space for Learning in Primary Classrooms. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference.

Hastings & Wood (2002). Reorganising Primary Classroom Learning. Open University Press.

Lecture: John Cooke (2004) “Debriefing lecture and the observation week”. Institute of Education, University of London.

Lecture: Anna Ferris (2004) “Bilingualism and Multilingual children”. Institute of Education, University of London.

Lecture: Anna Robertson (2004) “Pedagogy”. Institute of Education, University of London.

Lecture: Tony Russell (2004) “How to work with other adults.” Institute of Education, University of London.

Lecture: Anne Chowne (2004) “Improving the effectiveness of pupil groups in classrooms and the SPRinG project”. Institute of Education, University of London.

Pollard. A (2000) Reflective Teaching, Chapter 1. Available at: http://www.rtweb.info/ch01/nfr1.html#in