Читать книгу Can I Go and Play Now? - Greg Bottrill - Страница 19

There’s no sensory overload; neutral tones are calming, they are Danish and Danish is a very good thing indeed. If you want to back your boards, consider hessian or sacking. These have texture and cover the staple holes, but at the same time retain the warmth and calmness of a woodland walk in early autumn. Yes, it’s quite a 1970s idea, but somehow we have to look beyond our preconceptions of what adults think children need and consider what is best for them. If you are desperate for colour in the classroom, perhaps add a pop or two by revisiting your wardrobe and wearing yellow trousers or a bright green top – the neutral tones around you will set them off beautifully.

And for the record, if you’re interested, my favourite shade on a wall is Lace Grey – don’t ask why, it just is.

‘Open up my heart and watch her name appear ...’ – The Word Girl, Scritti Politti

Displays and the associated ‘learning walks’ that go along with them are more often than not the result of KS1/2 ideas of learning that seep their way into Early Years classrooms and spaces. Like data-driven outcomes, it’s an example of top–down approaches within our schools that unfortunately remain frequently unquestioned by our colleagues further up in school.

I’m not saying that your classroom should look bare and uninviting for the children, but we need to have a sense of the purpose behind anything that we put up on the walls, and that purpose should be child-driven only. In my own setting, we have the approach that nothing is displayed above child eye-height, and before we put anything up we have a quick thought as to its purpose. Is this moving learning forward? Is it tied to next steps? Does it celebrate new learning?

Often practitioners will say that a child’s work needs to be placed within a frame or neatly labelled to give children a sense of pride in their achievements. I’ve yet to meet a child who has complained bitterly or become upset when I have simply pinned their writing or drawing directly on to a board with no backing paper, label or commentary (which nine times out of ten they can’t read). It still shows off their work to their peers, but it does so without the encumbrance of time spent neatly cutting and framing. Again, time spent not on display but on considering next steps is time better spent.