be shown the patterns of numerals 11–20? If they cannot count 1:1, then what is stopping them? Is it their lack of ability to touch each object to be counted, is it their inability to say the numbers in the correct sequence? It goes beyond that they simply can’t count. We need to unpick the specifics and work on those so they can move forward.
In subsequent chapters we’ll explore this idea further, but for now ask yourself whether you are ready to open your own mind to moving away from what is a essentially a KS1/KS2 model of grouping children. Can you see that children are individuals, with their own unique voice, mind and developmental needs? I think that this is one of the most exciting ways of seeing children. Apply a sense of freedom to the children and yourself. After all, do we not see ourselves as individuals in the adult world? Are we not aware of our own distinct nature, are we not frequently driven by our own minds to try to be different from others? If I am due to go to a social event and someone happens to say, ‘Oh, I can’t wait for you to meet so-and-so. You’ll get on really well, they’re just like you’, then a petulant part of me will go out of my way to deliberately not get on with them because I see myself as individual. I don’t want to be like the next person – I want to be me. I think this analogy works with children, too. They exist deeply in their ‘me-ness’ and it is this that we need to recognise in the classroom – we need to meet them on the level of their individuality.
Chapter 2 Making their Universe the Right Universe
‘I feel like I’m just treading water. Is it the same for you?’ – Antichrist, The 1975
I love the colour grey in my home. I love grey paint on walls, grey sofas, grey radiators, grey armchairs. I watch films and find myself looking beyond the characters and the action to see what colour the walls are. Most of the film What Lies Beneath went by me because I was so intent on deciding whether Michelle Pfeiffer’s walls were battleship or gun-metal grey. I choose to paint walls in my house grey because I find it relaxing and calming. It goes with pops of colour courtesy of wallpaper and cushions. Grey makes my home home.
Now consider your classroom space
Is the space calming? Is it a home for the children? Is it representing your own idea of what you think a classroom should look like, is it decorated with online-acquired displays, posters and huge intricate boards in garish primary hues? We need to begin to ask ourselves: what is it that children need around them to truly learn, feel safe and feel like the classroom is somewhere that they can call their own.
Your objective should be to create a universe that they can operate within that is their universe not the adults’ nor the adults’ idea of what that universe should look like. Go on Pinterest right now and search for classroom ideas. You’ll find picture after picture of primary coloured borders, and charts and displays – neat and tidy, ordered and the outcome of a weekend’s laminating, cutting and sticking up. All lovely, though your crafted displays aren’t necessarily proven to be effective for children.
Ask yourself why you put up displays in your classroom. Who are they for? In truth, they are likely to be more for the adults in the guise of SLT, parents and visitors. They are for the domain of the Learning Walk. Your children may have the temporary glow of seeing something they’ve written or drawn presented in a neatly trimmed border, but that feeling will fade very quickly as it becomes another part of the wallpaper around them. And then you’ll have to go again and spend time on another display. Life is literally too short. Your children don’t need these displays. What they need is a universe that is theirs.
Primary colours, writing everywhere and brightly backed display boards create a maelstrom of sensory overload. The number of children with needs on the autism spectrum seems to be increasing and these children in particular are spending their school days in confusing environments that scream at them in a riot of information and bright colour. Our Early Years classroom spaces need a rethink. A really useful exercise is to ask your children to tell you their favourite things about the learning space. Whenever I have done this simple exercise, not once has a child mentioned any type of display. We slavishly put these things up because we think we need to. It’s like an unspoken rule passed down from generation to generation that somehow classrooms have to look a certain way. Well, they don’t – in fact, the adage less is more is the way forward.
‘You think I’m still the same/In every single way/But I changed ...’ Gone, Day Wave
The second useful exercise is to take a look at your classroom space yourself. Is what I have put up useful? Is it engaging? Is it at child eye-level? There really is nothing better than applying a sense of gay abandon and literally ripping your classroom apart ready to rebuild it. Take everything down – the backing paper, the printed number lines, the Words of the Week display, the reward charts, the Welcome board. Declutter. It’s one of the hardest things to do, but one of the most refreshing things at the same time. Question everything that you have on the walls and in some cases that you have on the ceiling. We quickly get trapped in the mindsets of the adult world in our classrooms. We become like the playground planning team who instantly think that all children love primary colours because they are jolly and childlike or every child loves a swing and slide.
At my school we take the children every week to our on-site woods. The level of play and engagement from the children is extraordinary and there’s not a single colour outside of brown or green in sight. We need to take the natural colours and bring them in. Burn the purple, garish backing paper and leave the backing boards plain brown – an added bonus is that instantly you’ve saved you or your TA 30 minutes’ work putting up backing paper, time that is better spent focusing on your children’s Next Steps.
Neutral tones enable children
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
