Hello, I’m Roger Cole and I’d like to welcome you to the Gratnells Learning Rooms Project. I hope that this introductory message will explain what the Learning Rooms project is all about, why you need to support it, and most importantly, what it will do for you as a teacher, for your classroom, and for the children you teach.
I’ve been working in the educational sector for more than 20 years, as a teacher, a teacher trainer, and providing consultancy to schools across the UK.
I’ve written and spoken extensively about primary education – and I’ve helped to develop the creative potential of children in classrooms by working closely with teachers and pupils in their classrooms and schools.
In all of this time, I’ve never ceased to be amazed how much technology has been made available to the average school, how many times the curriculum has been changed in order to provide what some would call ‘better education’, and how teaching methods have often been turned upside down as new approaches have been introduced – some for the better, but often for the worse.
Yet in all of this, there is one critical, vital, area that must be given attention before any of the things I have just mentioned can even begin to be effective.
It has constantly been neglected – certainly for the last twenty years.
I am talking about the classroom. The place where it all happens!
In fact, there is plenty of research to suggest that if the space in which you teach is not arranged correctly, then the classroom environment can actually impede and undermine the effectiveness of any teaching approach. It’s that important!
And that is what the Gratnells Learning Rooms project is all about. At last – now – there is a route, a plan, a way forward for turning your classroom – any classroom – into a Learning Room. A space where children can not only achieve academic success, but social success too.
Gratnells Learning Rooms will give you guidance that I believe has not been available to teachers before. We’re all very busy people, and teachers in particular do not have the time to track down the right information from the right sources, or keep up to date with the latest findings on how best to stimulate a child’s brain – a child’s mind, if you will – in a way that makes appropriate adjustments for age and learning behaviours, and even the classroom teaching style.
The Gratnells Learning Rooms project wants to provide you – free of charge – with a whole-systems approach to the learning process and designs that truly address the goal of any primary school and primary school teacher: an equal educational opportunity to learn regardless of a child’s visual, auditory, or kinesthetic modality, or ethnic origin.
Over the coming weeks and months, The Gratnells Learning Rooms project will be covering topics that relate to very specific areas of your classroom. We’ll look at how to rationalise space in your classroom so that it provides children with the opportunity to engage with the classroom in a responsible and accountable way.
We’ll consider desk and seating arrangements and why some of the ‘old’ ways of putting desks in a line are simply counter-productive. We’ll even look at work carried out by your class might be displayed and celebrated.
And if you thought storage was simply a matter of finding some kind of receptacle in which to store classroom materials and equipment, then think again. Of the five most important attributes of a Learning Room, storage takes a high place on the list. So we’ll be looking not only at what kind of storage you should have in a Learning Room, but how the children – and also the teacher – should use it.
We’ll consider a Learning Room that must cater for those children with special needs. And basic issues such as lighting, heating and ventilation will all be covered.
Now before you start thinking that this means all classrooms need to be demolished and rebuilt (and for those of you working in extremely antiquated facilities, you might wish for that!), let me assure you that we are not talking about construction – we’re talking about transformation.
It’s possible to transform the learning environment in ANY school to make it a place where the child wants to be.
That is what the Gratnells Learning Rooms project offers you.
Just as we have committed to supplying you with the materials and downloads that will assist you in turning your classroom into a wonderful Learning Room, we need your commitment to see it through.
The simple fact is, a well thought-out Learning Room makes children more likely to want to learn.
Children are our future in schools. Don’t they deserve to spend their days in well-designed environments that support their needs and stimulate learning? Of course. And with Gratnells Learning Rooms, you really can influence a child’s play activity, behaviour, social interaction – and learning.
The Gratnells Learning Rooms project team and me are looking forward to working with you on turning your classroom into a Learning Room.
Yours sincerely
Roger Cole
Gratnells Learning Rooms Educational Advisor