Making the classroom a warm, friendly and positive environment for children, teachers, parents and visitors is so important.This is especially true in younger years, when children might be feeling vulnerable about not being at home with their mothers.
Children in the early stages of their schooling will spend a great deal of time in their classrooms, because they don’t move from classroom to classroom but have the same teacher for all their subjects.In many ways, the classroom becomes a home away from home, and as such it has to fulfil many expectations.
Safety is a primary consideration. It is the school’s responsibility to ensure that classrooms are safe places for children to study and play. This means ensuring that everything from all electricity to the temperature of the rooms is safe. Dangerous wiring, rooms that are too hot or too cold, faulty furniture – these are all things that at make children uncomfortable and unable to function at their best, and in the worst case scenario, cause them injury and pain.
It is the teacher’s responsibility, and the students’, to make the classroom a nice place to spend time. Under the guidance of a teacher, children can make materials to decorate walls, chose their best pieces of work for display and bring in fish or plants. All of these will add their stamp to the classroom and give it a strong sense of identity.
Display stands and display boards can be useful to show off pieces of work – especially if the class is doing a presentation for the school in assembly with the same work. Instead of having to remove the display items, the display stands and display boards can be taken in and out of the assembly hall, with all the work intact, ensuring nothing gets damaged.
They are also great for parents and teachers evenings, or when guests are visiting the school, so that work can be shown off and displayed for everyone to see.