Changing Rooms
“You’re always changing your room around - just wondering why?”
The simple answer is - to improve the learning for the children in my class. I am a very reflective practitioner and I am always observing how the children use the classroom, reflecting on my lessons, and looking at ways to ‘close gaps’ in children’s learning.
But how do I know I need to do something to improve the space, activities or provision? I follow something I created called REA - Reflect, Evaluate, Adapt.
Reflect - What is happening?
Sit back and observe how the children are using the classroom, and asking yourself the following questions:
Which areas are most popular? Which groups of children are using these areas?
Which areas are not being used at all, by a few children, or only used for a short amount of time?
How are the children using the areas? Is there enough space? Are the children spilling over to other areas?
Do children ‘finish’ with an activity by transition times, for example lunchtime or the end of the day? Or do they need space and time to be able to leave their play and come back to it?
Evaluate - Why is it happening?
Now you have reflected, it is time to evaluate. What are you going to do with that information? What possible solutions are there for what you have observed during reflection? Is the space too small? Are there enough resources or the appropriate resources? Does the space allow for uninterrupted play? Do the children know how to play here? Does the area follow the children’s interests? Think about some reasons ‘it’ is happening - you know your children best, think about their needs.
Adapt - What are you going to do about it?
This is your action. You’ve reflected (observed what’s going on), you’ve evaluated (I’ve observed this, and this seems to be the need), so now you adapt.
For example, you’ve noticed (reflected) that the Home Corner is always busy and the children end up spilling over onto the carpet or have started transporting the resources to additional areas. You’ve evaluated why this is happening; they love to play in the space but it’s just not big enough. This area therefore needs adapting. Where else can the Home Corner go? Can you swap it over so it is a bigger area? Or can you open it up so it’s not so enclosed?
Adapting your provision to meet the needs of your children may look like:
moving an area of learning to a bigger space or a space where play can be ‘left’ for the children to come back to
adding, removing, or rotating resources
joining up two areas which complement each other, for example art with creative modelling
The needs of our children should determine the design of our classroom, just like they determine the design of our curriculum. Our curriculum is ever-changing, adapting, evolving; therefore so should our classrooms.