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There's more to 'working walls' than you might think - with a little ingenuity, teachers can use them for any subject and age group.
Mark Hitchen doesn't just make his students work; he makes his walls work, too. His classroom at Sandy Lane Primary School in Bradford, England, where he teaches children aged 6 and 7, has multiple display boards and they are all used to help his students meet learning objectives.
"They're central to my lessons and have helped both my class and my teaching improve," Hitchen says. "My teaching has gone from being rated 'good' by inspectors to being rated 'outstanding' since using them, and my students achieved the best results the school has ever had at their level. The use of the walls has been key to these achievements."
Hitchen uses what are termed "working walls": a system of wall displays that record, visualise and assist learning.
"Traditionally, displays were all about celebrating children's work. The working walls still do that but it is about making those walls a learning and teaching resource as well," says Sam Adams, owner of education consultancy Education Works and a leading trainer in the use of working walls in primary schools (for children aged 4-11) in the UK.
In simple terms, a working wall is used to indicate on a display board the starting point and learning outcome for the lesson unit being taught. You then record the journey between the two points on the board.
"The wall is there to showcase to everyone what is being learned, why it is being learned, what will be achieved and to track the progress through those aims, making the student an active part of the process," Adams says. "I have worked with many teachers who have been using them and the feedback is that they have a massive impact on student motivation and make a genuine contribution to progress."
The concept has been around for at least a decade but Adams says...