Are all state primary schools given to sensory overload nowadays?

[oodlesofdoodles]

I was at primary school some 30 years ago. It was a Victorian building with high windows. I remember rows of desks facing a black board, a spider plant on the window sill and a few pictures on the wall.

I went to visit local primary school (for ds) last week and was taken aback by the volume of stuff; pictures and posters to 10 feet high up the wall, loads of shelves groaning with books and boxes and art materials, a multi coloured rug, chairs, I couldn't take it all in. As if the environment wasn't stimulating enough the teacher told me that the children move to a new activity within the lesson every ten minutes.

Is this normal? If I keep looking will I find a calm tranquil (state) school or has that gone out of fashion?

I think it is part of the early years foundation phase. Everything has to be zoned and woe betide a teacher if not every area of the curriculum has it's own zone. I find the nursery/reception classroom terribly claustrophobic but apparently it's amazingly good (walked atound school with one of top bods in the county in early years the other day in my governor capacity and she raved about it). She criticised other classrooms for not having enough on the Walls etc.

50? Are there two teachers then?
This one is classes of 30.
I'm going to try and look at local church school. I have this notion that it will be calm and uncluttered.

Is there any evidence that cluttered class rooms are good for learning in? I would imagine its the opposite.

I'm not a brilliantly tidy person but ds responds so well to clear, instructions and routines (like clearing his setting at the end of a meal) that I do try.

It's very 'de rigueur.' You have to have displays up of the children's work, and fairly recent stuff, too, plus 'learning walls' which are used during lessons. Probably lovely for NT kids. Perhaps our lot would have been better off in a Victorian classroom. (Maybe not Victorian attitudes, though!)

Montessori schools are lovely and peaceful, as are steiner schools. I used to be a teacher aand we got bollocked if our walls weren't groaning with crap. DS1 is precisely the type of child who cannot work in a 'busy' environment. We home educate now and he is much happier!

Kumquat ds went from chaotic ms nursery to montessori and now supposedly back to ms but my heart sank when I went to look at the school.

Ellenjane, is it really 'lovely for Nt children'? Or do you think they are just better able to cope?

In my opinion, as a TA, the NT children like the displays when they are new, love having their own work on the wall, but it becomes 'wallpaper' for them after a week or so and they really don't notice it. No, I don't think they find it distracting at all. Very different for spectrummy children. Hard to see how to reconcile both views. The DC I support can use a 'distraction free' table, facing a blank wall but generally doesn't like to be seen as different.

When I moaned about it to ed psych she hurrumphed 'well I think you'll find that other parents like their children to have lots of stuff on the walls'.

Ellenjane, maybe my ds would learn to tune it all out like the other dcs then. What do your dss make of it?

mrz's school isn't like this, but most are. Learning walls, vocabulary banks, RRS boards, targets and 1001 exotic resources that twirl and sparkle and make noises.
It's like working on the pier sometimes, and yes. Our SMT walk round with a check list to make sure we have everything we are supposed to on the walls and that all the pieces are there.

My DS is an odd one. He's pretty much hypo-sensitive to everything and wouldn't care if he was working on the pier, so I don't have a typical viewpoint. The DC I support finds the displays a bit distracting, but even he seems to zone them out fairly quickly. He notices immediately if anything changes, though, and while it doesn't make him particularly anxious, he has to comment.

ime yes they are - I was going to suggest looking at a Montessori, my ds managed really well there & dd (nt) adores it. Calm, organised, muted, gentle routines - much healthier all around.

doh - missed out most of my post.

I was going to suggest a Montessori but I see others have.

Calm, organised, muted, gentle routines, no piles of stuff everywhere, everything is purposeful & accessible - much healthier all around.

I find it unpleasant to work in a cluttered environment, I can't imagine it is ideal for any child. I think an awful lot of it is schools feeling the need to be seen to be doing "stuff" rather than anything particularly educational

oh gawd I give up ... bolding was a bit OTT there ... sigh

I work in a MS primary school and I have been saying for YEARS that the walls are too crowded but I feel like a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

I was recently asked to do some cover in a colleague's classroom and I couldn't concentrate as there was soooo much 'toot' on the walls. I was then told I needed to take note of X's room as I could learn a lot from her........ Luckily I no longer have my own classroom so I don't have to have stuff everywhere, I just have to suffer the assualt on my senses in every other room I use.

Oh dear lone voices of the wilderness, if only we only had children/worked at the same school we could clear out the debris and put some white space between pictures.

I guess in a newer building then at least you can look out the window. In a high windowed Victorian classroom the guddle seems doubly oppressive.

Ellenjane I'm not sure whether ds is hypo sensitive or whether he's just prone to shutting down when things get too much.

dust is mrz your dc?

Teachers on this thread, is this tidy/tip classroom issue ever discussed on TES forums?

Mrz is an amazing poster on the site who is a primary school teacher, a SENCO and had a child with additional needs. She only seems to post about educational issues, and she knows an enormous amount of helpful stuff, including resources. You just have to say her name three times and turn widdershins and she appears.

Mrz, mrz, mrz, where is your peaceful school and how come it is immune to rampant consumerism? If rampant consumerism is what this is all about.

(not sure what a widdershin is....)

I'm trying to find the thread where she discussed this very topic.

Widdershins is turning anticlockwise.

Thanks dust

My Dad was a teacher trainer at a university. He was a big fan if White space. Also a big fan of failing shite teachers but he was always in trouble at work for both.