Less shit on the walls. You know those displays that *certain members of staff SLT are so intent upon having you cover every door, every wall, underneath, alongside and above the IWB/board and right up to the ceiling with? They're Kryptonite.
Natural daylight. Those bastarding fluorescent things flicker and buzz.
The multiple items of equipment, folders, things on surfaces, the state of the teachers' desks.
Painting rooms stupid colours, like bloody yellow, acid mint green or bright cyan.
Books that have to be covered with progress sheets that are a) appallingly designed for writing on, b) have been badly stuck on with generic Prittstik so have flappy bits and c) covered with that bloody school logo.
The above all create visual noise that is screaming at you constantly throughout a lesson.
The chairs that creak when you shift in them because you're uncomfortable physically and mentally.
Uniform. Those crispy jumpers that don't fit any known human being. Sodding ties. Skirts that rotate around your body. Blazers that are too long, too big and simultaneously too small. Shoes that squash your toes together instead of letting your feet spread out. Ugh.
Sit still, sit up, eyes forward - but staying still is really difficult with the irritating uniform, uncomfortable chairs, the Steps To Success/Our Ethos/Keywords/mounds of stuff to have on you at all times/the fucking lights all shrieking at you.
Having to concentrate your writing and condense every thought between the tiny lines on the page, rather than be able to think BIG and plan things with A3 pads and washable markers, is like putting your brain and body into a too tight inflatable lifejacket. And not those irritatingly thin presentation pads beloved of consultants either - you need proper paper. When you've got a brain that is pinging off in a thousand different directions and weaving around, interconnecting and linking concepts in 3D (if not 4 when you add Time), it doesn't fit in neat little horizontal spaces.
Movement. Waving arms, moving legs around, rocking helps you get the thoughts out - so almost impossible when there's somebody crammed in next to you, behind you and in front of you so that it's impossible to go anywhere without climbing over everybody, their bags and the desks.
If you're talking At me, I'm somewhere else after the first few words. No, I don't want to sit watching you click through a powerpoint and read out the scenario (even worse if it's a pre recorded thing). I've seen it, read it and understood in 2 seconds. I'm now dying a thousand deaths waiting for the slide to finish. See also 'Forcing people to read out loud'. Please don't make me sit through that.
Great lumps of text hold no interest. Space stuff out, make the font larger, use softer colours in tables rather than the generic bright red, bright green, yellow and blue. Look at occasionally flipping to a box with dark background and white text if you want me to notice something. And GET TO THE POINT.
Creating large poster presentations to condense knowledge into something that looks good, gets to the point and isn't going to kill my will to live in the process really helps - teach the skills to make them properly, rather than just a crappy drawing and no writing - a paragraph underneath a clear heading, so similar to a spider diagram made attractive/useful really helps.