This series of blogs is
going to concern things I wish I had known when I started out as an NQT in an
under-performing inner city school 15 odd years ago.
Let me be clear, there
is no magic wand that will make the youngsters into model students (well, if
there is I haven’t found it yet!) but there are lots of small things I could
have done that would have had a cumulative effect on their learning and
progress.
If you are lucky you
will be working in a school which has a policy that the teacher sets a seating
plan for every lesson. The teacher is
welcome to change the seating plan when they see fit but it will be easier for
you if every classroom has this consistency.
If your school doesn’t
insist upon this then hopefully your department will. If your department doesn’t then I still
encourage you to go for it on your own.
The students will reap the benefit.
Why have a seating plan.
A seating plan should
not be used to just control behaviour.
If you try to use it to simply control behaviour you are missing out on
some of the extra benefits this simple classroom strategy can bring. Seating plans allow you to group students in
a way designed to help them learn and make progress.
How do I set a seating
plan up?
I have experimented over
the years and have found the most effective seating plan is to sit students by current
or recent attainment. I know there are
other theories behind seating plans but this is the one that works best for
me.
To one side of the room,
always my right as I look at the room, I sit the most able students and the
least able are on the left. I initially
thought students might complain about this but have never had any problems with
students over this.
What are the benefits to
doing this?
1
1. I instantly know where to aim my
questioning. Easier questions are aimed
to my left so that I can build student’s self-esteem by giving them questions
they find accessible and harder questions go to my right. I rarely ask for hands up as I normally
target all my questioning at a specific student. This has the added bonus of keeping all the
students focused as they are never sure when they will be asked to answer.
2. I try and
differentiate my tasks in most lessons and it is far easier to do this if I can
talk to a small group of students at the same time in one area of the classroom
rather than having these students dotted around the room.
3. It makes group
work so much easier because if I want similar ability levels to work on a
problem, which I find works best, then everyone is already physically near each
other. If your group has a wide range of
ability I have found that the most able tend to dominate and the least able get
little out of the activity. Also, I tend
to find that the activity in a group with a wide range of ability fails to test
the most able.
What about parents who
complain?
Very occasionally
parents do complain about seating plans having been encouraged to by their
children. In this case I give them a
phone call to explain my thinking. After
the phone call I have had only a few parents, in 15 years, continue to complain
that their child is sat away from their friends. When I point out that the student is in my
classroom to achieve the best they can academically and that there is plenty of
time at lunch and after school for socialising they normally stop complaining.
What else?
Celebrate success. Students are more accepting of your methods
if you celebrate their progress.
The students in the type
of school I work in (inner-city) respond so well to praise. I suspect all students do but have most of my
experience in this type of school. When
students are successful in my classroom I make sure the parent knows. Minor successes get a phone call home (e.g. a
good piece of work that is academically of a good standard for that student and
not a piece of work that has just had lots of effort put into it.) , major
successes get a letter home. (e.g. a
good performance in the end of term assessment.)
I am always surprised by
the number of students who bring the letter in to show me as they and their
parents are so proud of it.
Try a seating plan and
let me know how it goes.
