Behaviour System

I love my new school's behaviour system. We follow a warning, yellow card, red card system where the children have a verbal warning, then if their bad behaviour continues they get a yellow card, if it happens again they get a second yellow card which means time out in another classroom. If on their return their behaviour doesn't improve or for one off severe events where they break the school rules they will be given a red card. This means an extended period of time out in another class room or with a member of the senior leadership team.

I have a visual representation of this at the front of my classroom which is easily accessible and a visual reminder for the children. Each child starts the day on 'golden' as they are all golden and sparkle! They each have a name tag on golden which can then be moved down the behaviour system if needed. The children can also move back up to golden if they improve their behaviour. I love this system as the children respond really well to it, they respect it and try their hardest to move back up to golden if they have slipped down the system.

Children that finish the day on golden can be in with a chance of being awarded with a 'star of the day ticket'. These are collectable in my classroom and there is a competition to see who has won the most tickets at the end of the term/year. (I made these using a free business card provider) I have a star of the day chart where the children take a ticket for the day won and then I place a picture of them on the chart so everyone can see that week who has won a ticket! The children love this and this is a really successful positive reinforcement of behaviour you want to see in your classroom!

Progress Display

Progress and attainment - always tricky to get the children to connect with and understand it. This year I have created a 'progress' display where I will be able to visually record the children's progress in Reading, Writing and Maths in relation to 'sub-levels'. I have included 3 jumps on my display to reflect aspirational progress of 3 sub-levels progress over the year (E.g. moving from a 3b to 4b).

I have included three jumps for each subject and for each subject the children have their own name label with their starting level on at the bottom. They will be able to see their progress on the display as well as be able to tell me and other adults what their target levels are by using the progress ladder at the top. 

The children will have a greater awareness of their starting levels and their responsibility to make progress over the year. Later on in the year I will post other photos showing how the display changes over time. I intend to update the children's journey on the progress path at key assessment points throughout the year. Who will leave the year having made the most progress?

Winter Wonderland Reading Corner.

In my new school they have a reading corner competition. Each class has to design and make their own reading corner centred on their chosen theme. My class chose a Winter Wonderland theme to link to the class novel we were reading (Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe). We made snowflake bunting on with our theme title, the children painted twigs and branches white and covered them in glitter, they made snowmen and snow flakes to decorate the corner and I added inspirational reading quotes from famous authors and celebrities. On the window I put tips on how to be a good reader.

WE WON THE COMPETITION! The children were very proud with their creation!

How will you theme your reading corner?

Before and after: New school, new job, new classroom!

This year I have the pleasure of moving to a new school! I have been promoted to Year 5 and 6 Phase Leader as well as Literacy Leader for the whole school. I am now teaching Year 5 again, an age group I love!

Someone recently asked me on my blog how my classroom looked at the beginning of the year. I was asked if I put up displays or left them blank.

Here are some photos of my classroom when I arrived!

BEFORE:

Well here is my answer!

AFTER:

I back all of my display boards and designate them to particular subjects. I fill the display boards with a variety of things - key information, key vocabulary and expectations of the children's work. I also have a couple of display boards filled with the children's work that they completed with me on 'going up day.' This is nice for the children to see their work on the wall in their new year group in September. Some display boards are deliberately left blank for working walls and usually Art displays which will be filled with the children's work early on in the term.

I think it is really important for the learning environment to be stimulating and inviting at the beginning of term to welcome the children back to school. It also needs to be organised! Here is a photo of how I organise the children's resources on their tables. I show them this picture at the beginning of the term to show them my expectations of keeping their table pots tidy and organised!

Crime Scene Investigation ~ Linked to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe!

Linked to our book topic of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I created a crime scene investigation themed lesson. I created a carousel in the classroom where the children had to look at five different pieces of evidence which could point to the possible criminal. They had to scrutinise the evidence and decide at the end which character from the novel was the criminal.

Here are some images of the resources and carousel from the lesson.

I created the image of footprints on the carpet by cutting out footprint shapes out of paper, lying them on the floor and the sprinkling talcum powder over them. Then I lifted off the paper to reveal what looked like footprints in the snow! The children really believed this! 

Here is a photo of the display I created after the lesson celebrating the children's work. From the lesson they had to write a wanted poster for the character in the story which they believed to be the criminal. On the display I included some of the evidence the children had looked at in the lesson. 

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe!

Here is the development of one of my displays all about our book topic - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I have attached a series of images to show how the display developed over time and what the final product looked like!


I started with backing it in a deep blue colour, putting green at the bottom for grass and then adding a black lamp-post in the middle to create a setting in the book as the background to my display.

After that I started to add some of the detail to the setting by using white paint to create the effect of snow. 

Then the children helped me to create snow flakes to add to the display.

Finally I began to add some of the children's work to finish it off. The children loved the display and enjoyed helping paint the characters to go on the main display. I also added photos from the film for the children to visualise the setting and characters in the novel.

Next to the main display I had room to showcase more of the children's work. This included setting descriptions of Narnia and cartoon scripts sequencing the main events in the story. 

This year I have used this book as the basis for my first Literacy unit in Year 5. Rather than creating a display like this, I created a working wall themed around the novel. Take a look at how different this is to my earlier display. This display included quality examples of the children's writing, photos from the film, key vocabulary cards to help their spelling and shared pieces of writing we produced as a class. I also included steps to success for punctuating speech correctly as this was one of my differentiated class targets.

There is a place for both a creative, celebratory style display as well as a working wall in your classroom. It totally depends on what your children need.