A few weeks ago, we launched our competition to win a classroom makeover and last week was the week we have all been waiting for! We brought a little team of TPTC design fairies to meet competition winner Charlotte and give her a classroom makeover – see our TikTok at the end of this post to see her reaction! We wanted to share some of the things we did in her classroom and give a few tips to help you to transform your own classroom ready for the new school year.
Charlotte is a teacher at an SEN school so that factored into the choices we made here. She chose the Plume theme to centre the classroom design around, so we picked up some accessories that matched this. Click here to take a look at our Plume display pack so you can see the designs for yourself! Here are a few of the things we focused on in this classroom makeover…
Adapting for individual needs
Every child is different and has different needs, and this is something that was at the forefront of our minds going in to decorate this SEN classroom. This is true of all classes though, as every class in all schools is made up of brilliant individuals! Adapting work for individual needs is a big part of being a teacher, and the same is true for classrooms. For this classroom, we incorporated the BSL signs on our alphabet bunting as that’s something that this class will find helpful throughout the year.
Edit & Print
Everything in our display packs is editable, so you can customize everything to your students’ needs. We created custom name labels so everyone can see where their seat is, and it still matches the theme of the room. We changed the labels to reflect the resources stored in the classroom – this classroom had a kitchen! We recommend printing onto satin card as it gives a great finish and will last longer in your classroom. Althought everything is editable, it's all already laid out onto A4 pages for you, so it's super easy to print. Anything that's larger than A4, like borders, will print onto multiple pages which you can arrange next to each other. No need to worry about moving things around to make it all fit on one page, just choose what you want, edit the text, print it then cut it out.
Design
We asked Charlotte which of our display pack designs she’d like us to use in her classroom makeover and she chose Plume, which uses some lovely greens and a bit of yellow. When designing your classroom notice boards and displays, we recommend choosing 2-3 plain colours that match your theme. We chose a forest green, a sage green, and a gold to use as backing for our displays so they worked with the Plume borders.
Make it homey
It’s always great to add some comforting touches to a classroom, especially to this one as it was a really nice big space, but we wanted to make it feel a little more cosy. We added placemats to the tables, which is a soft furnishing that adds a bit of warmth and comfort to the space. It also acts as a designated spot for the pen pots to go, which helps to keep tables tidy and acts as a visual divider between the storage area of the table and the workspace. We also added a few accessories, like a cushion on Charlotte’s chair and a vase on the windowsill with some plume-like feathers.
Customise
This is the biggest benefit of our display packs – you can customise everything! We added visual aids to lots of our drawer labels to help make it really clear what is stored where. We based each label on the classroom’s needs, so we could have matching labels for everything from action figures to phonics resources. We even labelled each individual part of the table storage caddy! So the scissors will always go in a separate section to the glue sticks and it’s super simple for students to access and put away things independently, since it’s all clearly labelled.
Matching everything
Since Charlotte was our big competition winner, we wanted to spoil her with goodies! Every year we have a new range of designs to choose from, and we love them so much you can get it on…well, pretty much everything! So we gave Charlotte a Plume-themed range of notebooks and planners, as well as planner pads, sticky notes, a lanyard, and even a mug!
Click here to see our full range of display packs
@positiveteacherco Here it is! Our full day classroom makeover. We couldn’t fit everything into the video so before and after coming tomorrow! Charlotte’s full reaction in this video. Thank you to Firwood High for having us! #classroommakeover #classroomdecor #classroomdisplay #classroomsetup #ukteacher #teachers #classroominspo #classroomsetupday1 ♬ Walking Around - Instrumental Version - Eldar Kedem
