I C T M AT T E R S
S C H O O L D I S P L AY S
Finding the ‘Catch Zone‘
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DR FIONA AUBREY-SMITH, director of One Life Learning, takes us on a fascinating journey around school displays – from the child’s eye view. Are your displays catching their attention? Probably not...
our children will spend around 10,000 hours in your school over the seven years of their primary education. They spend around half of their waking hours in the physical environment that you provide for them, and we know from the research that their environment plays a significant role in their mindset, wellbeing and achievements. Visiting schools across the country, I have seen noticeable differences in the approaches that are taken to creating
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learning environments that promote learning; schools that do this well tend to share certain key features. CARE AND ATTENTION Children will reflect what they are experiencing; if they can see great care has been taken in ensuring a clean, safe, carefully-presented environment then that’s what they will produce in their work and their demeanour. If everything has a place in your classroom then children will be better
at tidying up. If your board and desk are organised and pride is taken in what you model, then children will reflect the same care in their own presentation - if spaces are kept clean and presentable then children will respect and care for their class around them. The litmus test, according to one head, is to compare the classroom walls, furniture and resources to your home environment, and to ask each member of staff to do the same – would you want to live in these conditions?