Tuesday



An example of a working wall from Ivington Primary, found on the Internet

Apologies for yesterday's non-appearance.  Things were pretty hectic all day, ending in an after school visit to another local school for a presentation on how they do their 'working walls' (don't ask! - education is jam packed full of jargon and buzz-things-of-the-moment).  It was interesting but I am filled with envy at the amount of space they have there.  Their hall is twice the size of ours, despite us being twice the size of them in numbers, and their classrooms are huge.  The year 1 class has an outside area that is twice the size of their inside area (which is a lot bigger than ours anyway), concrete, grass and a little garden, plus a sort of large conservatory.  We have a small display board and cupboard doors for our displays, they have reams and reams of display area.  They have a separate cloakroom/washing area too. 
My bay (all the bays, in fact) is small, one wall is windows, one wall is coats, sink and door to the loos, one wall is open to the corridor and the last wall is for the whiteboard and display board.  To have an effective working wall for maths, literacy and science is simply not possible.

Envious?  Me?  You bet I am!  And yet, despite out severe limitations in terms of space and therefore some resources (they have to go somewhere, after all, and if there's no space . . .), we manage to get the children on, we get good 'results', OFSTED finds us 'outstanding' despite the 'inadequate for purpose' label on our physical environment, and the school is happy and bright.  We must be doing something right!  Quite a lot of something, in fact.

But I'm still envious.