Ways to make the most of your classroom space

Teacher tips: essentials for an organised classroom (Primary School)

Keeping your classroom organised can be a tough challenge with the constant chaos brought on by 30 students for 6 hours a day. Luckily, we offer some amazing products at fantastic prices on our website to help you contain the classroom chaos.

Storage

Storage comes in many forms and is the basis of a neat space. Without an efficient storage system, your headspace and workspace can become severely confused. One idea for a neat place to store items is trays. Trays can be utilised in many different ways to fit you and your classroom. For example, if you have a slightly snug area then a great alternative to a clunky tray cabinet or cupboard is our storage trolley. This is such a good product as it is easy to move around for accessibility; it can be used to store anything from exercise books to musical instruments to paints and paintbrushes! Alternatively, in spaces with much more room to store items, we offer bigger and sturdier options such as our variety of storage cupboards; available in different heights, width, and capacities.

Efficient Exercise Books

Your classroom is bound to be filled to the brim with more and more exercise books as the year goes on and storing them for easy access can be harder than it seems even with colour coded books. Piling them up until they look like the leaning tower of Pisa is not always a good idea either, despite what students think. One idea to gain easier access to them is to place them, similar to the tray cupboard above, in a deeper box style storage cupboard. This aids organisation by providing designated boxes for each subject, making it faster to access what you are looking for all the while keeping them neat and tidy.

On the other hand, one way to get better access to an individual pupils book faster - for marking, referencing, or parents evenings - is to place them into clear plastic tubs with the spines facing outwards. This way, students can put their names or even just initials on the spines enabling you to quickly see whose book is whose without scrambling through a huge pile.

Label Everything

Labels are such a simple yet effective way to keep tabs on what goes where. Labels could be placed on the trays to show which subject books belong where or could be placed on individual coat pegs or trays to save those early morning “he stole my tray” arguments in the corridor.  Why not go even further than sticky labels and purchase one of our label makers for quick and easy personalisation that won’t be rubbed off over time.

Fair ways to call on students

As a teacher, it can be hard to make sure you are picking all the students fairly all the time, whether it’s to answer questions or read out a paragraph of text. This can lead to the quiet students staying introverted and meek or the ones who want to be picked not being able to be. One idea to ensure fairness is kept as priority is to purchase some of our craft sticks and have each student write their name on them and keep them in a pot. Then, when it comes time for you to pick pupils for something, you can pick a stick at random and ask that person.