My New Classroom (my desk area)

As I will be the main teacher teaching in my room it is great to have my own desk too. As such I have already started filling the draws of my desk with all the stationary items I/my students will need over the course of the year. I have also hung up some displays around my desk area/behind that I can either refer to or to support students.

Here's my desk area:



The desk itself is pretty bare at the moment, which I'm sure won't last, but I do have a desk in one of the Mathematics offices and so I'm probably going to file paperwork away here rather that in the class so I can put my class information, lesson plan, resources etc on the desk. This way it also means that when other teachers use the room when I'm not teaching that they will have some space too and won't have to sift through my mess to find things they need (the IWB remote etc).

 

On the front of the desk you will notice I have covered it. Initially, the reason for this was that there was some graffiti/marks on it that I wanted covering. However, as I have covered the the front of the desk with www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk  I have since thought about how I can best use this space. I have decided to put on here information that could support the students sat directly in front of it. These seats will naturally be given to my SEN students that require a bit of further support/access to myself and can see the boards a lot clearer. So, before each lesson/topic I will write some key information/tips/examples etc on the sheets on the front of the desk for them to use in class. This will hopefully improve their learning and also take away from the exposure they may get in class as to be given further help/support. I know certain students can feel embarrassed when needing help/having a TA sat with them constantly in every class and so hopefully, when explaining to them what I intend to do with the space they can get some help before myself and my TAs assist further. I can also direct students to the area if they are looking for further help when I am already assisting another student? (I'm thinking out loud here).

 

On the window besides the desk I have put up an A4 magic whiteboard sheet for each class. these are currently blank but will eventually contain information for the class in terms of their homework deadlines, exam/assessment dates, websites to use, helpers of the week etc.

 

I have a filing cabinet, to which I now have the keys to. On top of the cabinet is my QR Code Cube http://mrcollinsmaths.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/my-qr-code-cube.html, my Dice of Decisiveness and my Large Playing Cards. The inflatable football was there when I arrived and will be used when I get bored :). There's loads of stationary and files in the cabinet that I will use. The files I need to sort through, but I will keep a file for each student in here to store assessments/results etc.

 

On the display behind the desk I have put up some 'Maths DJing' lyrics and possibly more importantly my IKEA rulers. Having recently visited the store I asked one of the members of staff there if I could take a handful of these and their mini pencils as I was a Mathematics teacher and they kindly said yes; you don't ask, you don't get!