I used this classroom management strategy while I was in my last year of placement. I would constantly ask the children to come and sit on the carpet quietly, instead it would take them ages to decide who to sit next to, where their friend was sitting, they didn’t like who they were sitting next to etc. After wasting the best part of a Literacy or Numeracy lesson I decided to make a seating plan (sounds a bit formal but it actually works.) I drew a plan and decided who could sit next to whom. Obviously this was the perfect chance to separate Billy and Bob!

I had five lines each consisting of six children. The children were told what line they were in and to look at the person next to them and remember that this was their carpet space!

Wow it was a different class! They loved competing against the other lines, who could be the straightest line, who was the quietest. I then used the lines to send children to lunch etc. (I can see line 2 is the quietest, they can go for lunch first!).

Tips: put the noisy/ disruptive children at the back, here they gain least attention as all of the children are looking to the front.