Garden International School, Malaysia

It’s great to see mainstream magazines picking up on the whole area of learning environments and questioning if convention classrooms are a thing of the past. This short piece highlights some of the fantastic work that is continuing to evolve at Garden International School in KL. We’ve been working together for a few years now. There’s a podcast on the home page of my website discussing some of the theory behind the changes made.

http://happygokl.com/are-conventional-classrooms-a-thing-of-the-past/

 

Bright Stars Nursery, Sunderland, UK

Bright Stars Nursery, Sunderland, UK

Our environment at Bright Stars Nursery consists of one purpose built room and a large outside space. We cater for children from birth to 5 years. Before we started implementing Elizabeth Jarman’s Communication Friendly Spaces™ Approach, our room was cluttered with tables and chairs, had no definition or specific inviting areas or spaces for children to really focus in, settle and ‘talk’. We felt our children were using the areas within the setting to run from activity to activity and did not seem to become focused on much. The noise level of the whole nursery was very loud and it felt chaotic. Resources lacked in terms of quality, there was no character and the space just seemed unloved. We knew we had a big challenge on our hands.

The Singapore International School, Bangkok

Before working with ELIZABETH JARMAN®, our learning environment was not child friendly enough. It was harsh, bright, loud, not really welcoming, office or hospital-like, just not comfortable.

It’s really to important have the senior team on board to lead whole school change. Working with this Nursery and Kindergarten senior team over a few years has allowed targeted strategic development to evolve ~ Elizabeth Jarman

Tibberton Primary School, UK

Before working with ELIZABETH JARMAN®, our school was full of brightly coloured classrooms. Walls had multi-coloured designs, were crowded with posters and had very little clear wall space. In the corridors all the notice and display boards were a dark red colour with black borders – this felt very oppressive, and the children crowded into the corridors nosily with little respect for each other. We lacked reading corners in the school but did have them in Reception.

Observing children’s behaviour and response in different parts of your environment is important and highlights it’s influence.  ~ Elizabeth Jarman