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Kindly Take Your Seats

Nigel Hastings and Josh Schwieso
Abstract: 

Flexible seating arrangements to suit all types of learning.

Journal issue: 

KINDLY TAKE YOUR SEATS

Nigel Hastings and Josh Schwieso

The University of Reading

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Do children learn best sitting in groups or rows? British researchers Nigel Hastings and Josh Schwieso say the debate needs widening and teachers should experiment with switching room layouts to suit different tasks. They explain how furniture can be a flexible teaching tool while Maureen O'Connor visits two primary schools which have put their theories into practice.

It is not easy to find a primary classroom these days where children sit in rows. Fifteen years of research has painted a clear and consistent picture of how children are organised and taught by British primary teachers: they are generally seated around tables in groups of four to seven.

The most common rationale for this arrangement is that it enables them to collaborate in their work and develop communication skills. However, learning activities which require collaboration are difficult to design and are rarely used by most teachers.

As a consequence, when they are not directly involved with their teachers, most of the tasks children are asked to engage in are individual in nature: they all have their own work to complete. It might be that children still discuss their individual work and gain from these exchanges, but the evidence is that a minority of children's classroom conversations are work-related.

Taken as a body, the research evidence can sustain a bold and challenging claim. Children in British primary schools are generally expected to sit in groups but to work as individuals.

If we set alongside this claim the Elton Committee's finding that the most frequent disruptive behaviour reported by primary teachers is “inappropriate talk”, some obvious questions about the match between contexts and tasks begin to arise.

Echoing others, the Three Wise Men raised the issue in their 1992 discussion paper: “All too often there may be a mismatch between the collaborative setting of the group and the individual learning tasks which are given to pupils. The result is that the setting may distract pupils from their work”.

They could have been bolder. Evidence already existed that would have justified a claim that the setting does distract pupils. Two small studies recently conducted at the University of Reading have confirmed that matching seating arrangements to task requirements is important. Two seating arrangements were investigated - groups and rows.

The first study was undertaken with two parallel classes of 31 children in years 5 and 6 (standard 4 and form 1). Observations were made of children while they were doing individual work in English or mathematics.

Each class was observed on four days a week over three, two-week phases. Class A sat in rows for the first fortnight, groups for the second fortnight and rows again for the final two weeks. For class B the sequence was groups, rows, groups.

The results were clear. Children seated in rows spent more time engaged with their work. Class A pupils were “on task” for an average of 75 percent and 79 percent of the two phases in rows and for 56 percent when seated in groups. For class B, the figures were 76 percent for rows and 66 percent and 65 percent for the group phases.

The effects of these different seating arrangements on children varied considerably, but there was a pattern. For children who concentrated well when seated in groups, moving to rows made no appreciable difference: they could concentrate well in either context. However, for the eight most easily distracted children in each class, sitting in rows made a dramatic difference.

In Class A, they were on-task for 72 and 78 percent of the two phases in rows but for just 38 percent when seated in groups. In Class B, the figures were 72 percent in rows and 44 and 46 percent in the group seating phases. Most of these children more than doubled their involvement with work and, taken together, they achieved around the class average when seated in rows.

The consequences of a mismatch between seating arrangements and the nature of the learning activity for the most distractible children - some of whom may also be disrupting others by their “off-task” activities - was again demonstrated in the second study.

This was undertaken with a teacher of a year 3 and 4 class in which the behaviour of two boys, Kevin and Luke, was causing serious concern and disruption. Classroom \ observation identified a third child sitting at the same table, Mark, whose behaviour and level of involvement with his work also warranted concern.

Observations over three weeks at times when children were meant to be engaged in what the Americans call “individual seat-work”, revealed that these three pupils were out of their seats for more than two-thirds of the time and engaged with their work for under a quarter. The class as a whole was working at the tasks in hand for an average of just under half the time.

Reviewing this evidence, the teacher decided to try to settle the class by seating the class in rows for individual work. Over the next three weeks the class average rose to 78 percent. To everyone's surprise and delight, the figures for each of the three boys were above this class average and their disruptive effect on the rest of the class decreased considerably. Far from feeling oppressed and trapped in their seats, they thought the new set-up was wonderful.

These studies add to the evidence showing that the situations in which we ask children to work are often not well chosen and can make life particularly difficult for the most distractible. They also show that improvements can be brought about.

But in considering implications for practice, a number of points need bearing in mind. First, these studies only examined the effects of different seating arrangements on children's on-task time. They did not measure learning outcomes. Research on learning gains under the two conditions is difficult and so far limited. However, time on-task is of significance as, although time spent working does not necessarily result in learning, it is pretty difficult to learn without spending time on it. Some of these children's average on-task rates were less than 25 percent when seated in their normal groups.

Second, although there are now a number of published studies demonstrating the effects of seating arrangements, they cannot sustain generalised claims as the classes studied were not selected to be representative of primary classes as a whole. On the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that they were particularly unusual. Moreover, the fact that similar results have emerged from a variety of studies undertaken in different parts of the country and in different types of schools, does give rise to a degree of confidence in generalising.

However, the potential value of educational research of this sort does not lie only in findings that can be generally applied. It can also be a valuable, if temporarily uncomfortable, spur to review and development in schools. The fact that seating arrangements have been found to have such marked consequences for children in the classrooms studied may well prompt boards of trustees, governors, headteachers and individual teachers to review practice.

Some teachers who have done just this have developed a flexible and strategic approach to classroom seating and consider classroom organisation as a part of their planning. Their children have learned two or three basic arrangements and move the furniture to suit the learning activity. Other teachers have been fortunate in being able to have some areas permanently arranged for collaborative work and others for individual tasks.

Consider common sense as part of the furniture

You only have to look around my office to see that what we are talking about is commonplace in adult life, says Katie Diffin, head of the Manor Primary School in Reading.

If I have written work to do I sit at my desk, if 1 want an informal discussion I use the comfortable chairs, and the table is there for more formal meetings.

Manor is one of a number of schools in Berkshire which have been influenced by Nigel Hastings' work on classroom seating arrangements through their in-service links with Reading University. This does not mean returning to Dennis Potter's nightmare Singing Detective scenario of children sitting in rigid rows with their hands on their heads. It does mean, says Mrs Diffin that a teacher should choose the correct setting for a teaching purpose and for the needs of individual children.

This means she says, that for whole-class teaching children must be able to see the teacher easily, for collaborative work they should sit in groups, and for individual tasks they should not be distracted by their neighbours. The best way to increase the work-rate of the most distractible children, she thinks is to reduce the distraction by insisting that they sit alone or in pairs without anyone facing them.

Her deputy, Carol Pearce, who takes a year 6 (form 1) class, puts the philosophy into practice by ranging most of her room's tables in a horseshoe within which four separate tables face the front. That is the way the room stays, she says, when she is talking to the whole class or when the children are working on individual tasks. For collaborative work, they spin the tables together to accommodate groups of four or six and for “circle time” - class discussion - they complete the square.

If a child is being particularly difficult he or she might sit on a single table away from the rest of the class, she says. She has little doubt that both the quantity and the quality of the class's work has improved since she began to experiment with class seating.

Her pupils seem to agree. They are aware of the purpose of each arrangement, can reorganise the room very quickly and say they appreciate the virtues of minimal distraction when they are working.

There is no doubt, Mrs Diffin says, that the work rate goes up with a more appropriate seating arrangement. She has not attempted to change the whole school's practice overnight, but is relying on observation to persuade staff that the permanent groups they were using might not always be the best approach to behaviour management or learning.

As far as she is concerned the primary norm of sitting children in groups for all their activities is outdated. And the harder children find it to concentrate, the more they will benefit from a seating plan where they do not have eye contact with their friends and cannot kick them under the table or interfere with their neighbours' books.

At Lynch Hill combined school in Slough, head-teacher Jill Forbes has gone through a similar learning process, and come to similar conclusions. One of her strategies to avoid distraction for children at work was to invest in blinds for all the windows, to cut out glare and reduce the view of the playground.

Then she and some of her staff met Nigel Hastings on an in-service training course on behaviour management. The Lynch Hill team raised the question of whether seating arrangements were relevant in a school serving a seriously deprived council estate.

His advice, plus trial and error at school, soon convinced Ms Forbes that they were very relevant indeed.

We leave it very much to class teachers, and almost every class has a different arrangement of tables. We take into account not only the nature of the task but the needs of individual children. Some emotionally disturbed children work better on their own facing a wall.

We had one boy who was quite disturbed by sitting in a group but was able to work happily in a pair with another child, whose own self-esteem was raised by being able to provide some support for his neighbour.

The main thing is to be aware of what you are doing with the furniture and what effect different arrangements will have.

But Jill Forbes has some reservations about making rigid rules about seating.

In a catchment area like ours it is very important to encourage children to feel positive about school.

Some of them come to us with very few social skills, and in the beginning they need to be in groups to learn to share, to exercise self-control and responsibility. It is a delicate balance.

Such children, she thinks, also need security and stability at school when there is so little outside. Working in settled groups, and a minimum of furniture moving, helps build the confidence of the youngest children. At Lynch Hill, she says, most of the infants (New Entrants or kindergarten children) still sit around the traditional tables for groups of four or six with a gradual switch towards separate tables in rows as they move up the school.

Her colleague Marie Ingham is also concerned about the social implications of seating arrangements in classes where outside aggressions can easily be brought into school. “Ideally I would like to keep them in groups, so long as they are arranged so that I have eye-to-eye contact with all the children. They do need to know that I am aware of what they are doing. Pairs can be very difficult, and I make them earn the privilege of sitting by a friend. I would be very reluctant to have them in rigid rows. That does not really tie in with our aim to encourage their social as well as their intellectual development.”

And while seating arrangements may be important, so too are issues of space and resources. Sitting children in rows, these teachers say, takes up more space. Sitting them in groups may be essential for some activities simply because they have to share expensive equipment. Nothing is as simple as it appears.

Maureen O'Connor, Journalist

In the school where the first study took place, for instance, teachers have drawn on the evidence of the two classes and, 18 months on, employ two basic modes of organisation. Children move the furniture to match the task requirements and to meet particular needs.

In one class, for example, four children sit in a group for individual tasks, supported by a classroom assistant, while the rest work sitting in rows. When there is group work to be done, they all sit in groups.

In another class, however, the arrangement of tables in rows makes for overcrowding and it would be difficult for the teacher to get round to all the children. So there is a compromise with a mixture of rows and grouped tables for different tasks.

When a teacher's intention is that children should learn through collaboration - by exchanging ideas, hypothesising, debating or solving problems together - group seating arrangements make obvious sense. However, for individual work in which each child has his or her own work to complete, other arrangements such as horseshoes, L-shapes and rows may reduce the sources of distraction.

The crucial aim is to limit eye contact between pupils, but to make it easier between teacher and pupils. Every school will need to develop its approach within the constraints imposed by architecture, furniture and class sizes, but the available evidence should cause all to question the wisdom of sitting children in groups for all activities. It seems to make learning very difficult for some children.

Groups seated around tables have been the orthodox form of primary classroom organisation for the past 30 years, just as rows of seats were universal for decades before.

We have grown so accustomed to seeing children in primary classrooms seated in groups that any other layout seems improper. The idea of using any other arrangement - especially rows - may be difficult for many schools and teachers to entertain.

However, despite attempts by some journalists to cast the research as justifying “traditional teaching methods”, the issue is not about whether it is better for children to sit in groups or rows. Nor is it about the relative merits of group work and individual work. It is about fitness for purpose. Arrangements that match one purpose are unlikely to be suitable for another.

If the thought of moving furniture to suit different activities fills the anticipating teacher's mind with the sound of scraping chairs and table legs, it should not. Just as children get out and pack away PE equipment, so they can learn two or three basic arrangements of furniture. The time taken should be more than compensated for by increased time on-task, quantity of work undertaken and, we suspect, in long-term quality of learning.

One commentator has suggested that the widespread practice of sitting children in the manifestly social context of a group, then asking them to get on with their own work and telling them off for talking, borders on cruelty. Expressed like this, it certainly seems an odd thing to do. Perhaps it is time to move on and embrace classroom seating as a pedagogical tool. It is more than just furniture.

Notes

Nigel Hastings is senior lecturer and director of in-service training at the University of Reading's department of education studies and management. Josh Schwieso is now senior lecturer in the school of psychology at the University of the West of England.

The research outlined here was reported in

Hastings, N. & Schwieso, J. (1994, October 21). Kindly take your Seats. The TES, pp. 3,4.

The research will be published in

Hastings, N. & Schwieso, J. (in press) Tasks and tables: the effects of seating arrangements on task engagement in primary schools. Educational Research.

and

Hastings, N. (in press) Seats of learning? Support for Learning.

Details of the Elton Committee's finding are reported as

Department of Education and Science. (1989). Discipline in schools: report of the Committee of Enquiry chaired by Lord Elton. London: H.M.S.O.

The “Three Wise Men” report is

Alexander, R., Rose, J., & Woodhead, C. (1992). Curriculum organisation and classroom practice in primary schools: a discussion paper. London: Department of Education and Science.

For further reading into research on seating arrangements, see

Axelrod, D., Hall, R.V., & Tams, A. (1979). Comparison of two common classroom seating arrangements, Academic Therapy, 15, 29-36.

Bennett, N. & Blundell, D. (1983). Quantity and quality of work in rows and classroom groups. Educational Psychology, 3, 1, 93-105.

Wheldall, K. & Glynn, T. (1989). Effective classroom learning. Oxford: Blackwell.

Wheldall, K. & Lam, Y.Y. (1987). Rows versus Tables II: the effects of two classroom seating arrangements on disruption rate, on-task behaviour and teacher behaviour in three special school classes. Educational Psychology, 7, 4, 303-312.

Wheldall, K., Morris, M., Vaughan, P., & Ng, Y.Y. (1981). Rows Versus Tables: an example of behavioural ecology in two classes of eleven-year-old children. Educational Psychology, 1, 2, 27-44.

Yeomans, J. (1989). Changing seating arrangements: the use of antecedent control to increase on-task behaviour. Behavioural Approaches with Children, 13, 3, 151-160.