Blog

You’ve spent all weekend printing, cutting and laminating resources as well as planning what would go in each every of provision for the week. By 10am Monday morning you feel disheartened as the resources are strewn across the classroom or are not being used as you intended.

It’s exhausting isn’t it!? I know because that used to me. Then I realised it didn’t have to be that way.

Once I started planning from the children’s interests and fascinations I saw that the learning just happened in the high quality continuous provision I had already set up. Levels of engagement improved, I saw huge levels of creativity  and I rarely got interrupted to support behaviour. I stopped having children wandering around the provision looking lost or disrupting others as they were exploring their own ideas and projects.

This saved me so much time and I could spend time doing things that would actually had an impact on my children. Like planning a woodland walk for the children interested in ba...

This week we have the fabulous Hollie (also known as Bags of Beans!) who will be giving us a wonderful insight into how she's created calm in her year 1 classroom. I'm sure you will see that there are many hygge elements to this as well!

My obsession with classroom environments began when I first visited St John’s C of E Primary School. From the moment I walked in I was struck by the calm atmosphere and serenity it brought to their children. My colleague and I whispered to each other is disbelief “it’s just so calm”. Upon walking back into my own classroom I was smacked in the face with bright colours and loud noises! Everything felt over stimulating and busy by comparison; as if there were balls of high energy bouncing around the walls! From then onwards I was hooked into finding ways of calming my classroom and moulding the environment to generate the same serene feeling I’d experienced at St John’s.

I began with the lights! First of all, I wanted to reduce the lighti...