Before kicking off,
let me make it clear that I’m not teaching granny to suck eggs here. But if you
are new to the teaching profession, or wondering about the best way to arrange
your classroom, it may be that I can at least offer some food for thought.
And so we begin.
For those of us in
Scotland, the new academic year is beginning to bear down on us – fewer than
two weeks to go. Not long now until we meet our new classes (or nearly-new, for
those of us who have the joy of the June start, ie a few weeks of running
through the “new” timetable… difficult to explain this to anyone outside of
Scotland, and nae wonder) – and not long until they meet us.
How, then, to start
off? Do you use a seating plan?
I know of old hands in
teaching who don’t bother. Get them in the door, then move the more obvious
culprits from the back of the room to the front, and off we go. And I know of
some newer teachers who have committed to having a different seating plan, more
or less randomly generated, for every lesson, so that the pupils get a chance
to work in different groups.
Both types of teachers
have my admiration, but I confess I’m still a fan of the seating plan. I can –
and will – give quite a few reasons for this, but for the main one, let me take
you back a few years. Cue harp music representing flashback sequence…
It’s my first week in
my first year of secondary school – heck, let’s just say it’s the first day. It
probably was. My class, class 1C1, has been round a few classes already –
English, I seem to recall, and Science, and what have you. In each class we’ve
wandered into the room and found our way to seats – our choice. Next up is History with Miss M. We find
our way to the room and she is waiting right at the door to welcome us (for
which she would still get brownie points today from HMI). I’m not paying much
attention and I give her a friendly nod as I walk into the door when suddenly
I’m not walking any more. She has her hand barring the doorway.
“And where do you think
you’re going?” she asks. I’m about to point out that I’m quite obviously trying
to get into the classroom, but she’s already asking me for my name, and showing
me on her plan (which I only now notice in her hand) exactly where I’m to sit.
And to this day I can
remember thinking:
This is not a teacher
to be messed with.
That’s your main
reason, right there. An immediate message to the new class: my house, my rules,
my seating plan. Now to be fair, some kids may object to this – to which I can
only say, good. You’ll never have a better chance to quash any complaints than
on day one with a new class, so just go for it. (And let’s face it, if you decide to give the kids free
choice, and then decide a few weeks later that you really need to rearrange the
seating because of all the riots and murder and whatnot, the kids will object
all the more.)
Remember also a fairly
basic premise: knowledge is power. If wee Darren is playing silly buggers at
the back of the room, it’s a damn sight easier to call him to order if you know
his name. So if you are going to use a seating plan, you’d better learn it, and
fast, otherwise you’re operating at 50% power from the get-go. True story: I
once took over a class who had been through any number of teachers, mainly
supply, because of staffing difficulties. I drew up a seating plan before I met
the class and, with a bit of effort, I learned the plan by heart, so that by
the end of the lesson I was able – party piece ahoy – to go round the class and
name each pupil, one by one, without recourse to any bits of paper. I then
pointed out to the class that they would no longer be able to complain to their
parents that their maths teacher(s) didn’t even know their name. It made an
impact, I can assure you. (If you need help with memorisation techniques, by
the way, go google. Heck, even Derren Brown will give you tips to get started. And if you still need convincing that knowing names is a powerful matter, here's a clip from Doctor Who where the good Doctor manages to evaporate a baddy just by naming them. Works for me.)
Now, for a few other
reasons:
It’s an unspoken law
that when pupils arrive and are given a free choice, then (a) the seats fill
from the back of the room forwards, and (b) males and females tend to sit
apart. (a) is obviously a daft idea – which is why old hands will move some of
the kids at the back straight off. But based on what, exactly? How they look?
Whether or not they are called Wayne? OK, so the truly worst offenders may well
have tried to stab someone by now, but I doubt your super Spidey-teacher powers
are so good that you can identify any and all trouble makers within three
minutes of meeting the class. Much better, I’d argue, to go for a “random” (of
which more anon) seating plan. One which, incidentally, manages to mix up the
sexes so that boys and girls DO sit together, thereby dealing with (b). I mix
them up not only because there’s a fair chance that behaviour will be better,
but also because I think it’s not a bad idea to engineer an opportunity for
daft wee ladies to be able to say at least a few words to not quite so daft wee
lassies without breaking into a sweat. Well, they probably will sweat
initially, but they’ll get there in the end. Trust me, if teachers didn’t mix
classes up in this way, there’d be some lads out there who wouldn’t say a word
to a girl for six years. (We should probably have seating plans in staff rooms,
now I come to think of it, and for exactly the same reasons.)
Next, there’s no point
in pretending that you are drawing up the seating plan in a vacuum, that is to
say, in an absence of information about the pupils to be entrusted into your
care. Even if you are new to the school, I’d be astonished if you weren’t given
all manner of information – too much information, to be honest – about your
pupils. And if such information is not forthcoming from the Support for
Learning Department, or Learning Support Department, or Guidance Department…
then get out there and ask for it, pronto. Otherwise you will be unaware that
Wayne has fallen out with Dwayne and so they must not be seated together; that
Darryl is blind in one eye and so has to be seated at the front and right; that
Carryl is deaf in one ear and must be seated at the front and left; and that
Mac the Knife earned his nickname the hard way and must be kept away from the
safety scissors. Throw in the fact that every second kid has an inhaler and/or allergy
to strawberry cheesecake, and hey presto, your seating plan now begins to
resemble a Sudoku puzzle. That’s no reason not to draw up the plan, by the way,
and it does beg the question of how you cater for all these requirements if you
are randomly generating those plans.
I could go on, but
it’s time for a break. My next post will look in more detail at seating plans
through the lens of a pretty important question: assuming you have any control
over it, how are you going to set your room out? Will pupils sit in rows, in
pairs? Singly? In groups? And if so, in threes, or fours, or… what, exactly?
