Gratnells Learning Rooms

Interesting classroom layout movie

Paula — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:23:19 +0000

Just found this interesting movie on classroom layouts on TeachersTryScience. It’s probably aimed at secondary schools but it’s still worth a look.

http://www.teacherstryscience.org/ts/classroom-setup

Teachers TryScience is a new website for teachers, providing free and engaging lessons, along with teaching strategies and resources. It is designed to spark students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

Free Learning Rooms talk at The Education Show

Paula — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:47:03 +0000

If you are going to be at the Education Show 2012 why not make sure you pop along to our talk on Learning Rooms? Educational consultant Roger Cole will be giving a talk on best practices - ‘Teaching and Learning for the Next Decade’

The talk is on Thursday 15th March from 2:00 to 2:45 and is free to attend, but the show organisers do recommend you get there about five to ten minutes before the start to make sure you get a space. Roger is a very entertaining speaker so it should be an interesting session.

The Education Show 2012 will be held in Brimingham from 15th to 17th March 2012. Just click on the image below for more information.

Behind the scenes

Paula — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:19:02 +0000

We had an action packed day this week as the Gratnells team met up with Roger Cole at a primary school in Cambridge to create some material for the next few modules for the Learning Room Project. Roger demonstrated some interesting arrangements of classroom furniture and storage units which could be easy to use and functional for children and teachers alike. All of the photographs and videos are now being compiled into the next module which you will get by email as soon as it’s available.

Say cheese!

If you have any questions about Gratnells Learning Rooms or about classroom storage, please ask. We’d love to hear from you.

Welcome to our blog!

Paula — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:55:48 +0000

Welcome to the Gratnells Learning Rooms project blog. Here we plan to discuss aspects of using your classroom as an effective Learning Room. The aim of the project is to effectively engage with the children in your class and the aim of this blog section is to engage with you, the teachers and educators. Please do join in and let us know what you think – we welcome everyone’s experience and views. We would love to see photos of your classrooms too, either to show us what you are doing well – or to ask for help.

So why Learning Rooms from Gratnells?

‘Storage is one of the five most important attributes of a Learning Room’.
Jim Greenman, Institute on Child Care Design and author of Caring Spaces, Learning Places: Children’s Environments That Work

Gratnells has been the leading name in classroom storage for over thirty years and pioneered the original standards for UK school furniture. You’re probably familiar with our trays as they are found in most primary school classrooms and secondary school science labs. Now we have teamed up with Roger Cole – one of the UK’s leading Educational Advisors – to bring both of our areas of expertise together.

Research shows that if classroom space is not arranged correctly then it can impede and undermine the effectiveness of any teaching approach. This is what the Gratnells Learning Rooms project hopes to address. We believe that this is guidance for teachers that hasn’t been available before in one handy resource.

Over the next few weeks we hope to be able to help you use our whole systems approach giving each child an equal opportunity to learn in a way that works best for both them and you. Some of the topics we will be discussing will include:

Principles of classroom design and best practice table layouts.
Useful resources.
How to rationalize space in the classroom allowing children to engage with different activities.
Spaces for work and belongings.
Ways to display work.
Storage – one of the five important attributes – how children and teachers can use it.
Transform – not rebuild! It’s possible to transform the learning environment without a large budget – we can help.
Integrating Technology.

So check back soon – and please let us know if there’s anything you’d like us to cover in a future blog post.