Establishing my space: my blog and my classroom.

It is with extreme caution and fear that I start my first blog post. There are an exhaustive amount of reasons why it has taken me a long time to start blogging and why still, whilst writing this post I do not feel quite ready to do so. A selection of the more prominent reasons are:

1. Top reason: I am only an NQT. I have just finished my PGCE and I wonder what I have to offer? When I read other educational blogs my mind is often shaped and my opinions change; Am I too naive to really offer my less-justified/experienced opinion?

2. What is my purpose? Are these posts merely a self-indulgent experience of letting out some of my stress/worries/anger - or do I actually want someone to read them? If I don't want anyone to read them, what is my purpose? Right - so maybe I might have to actually let people read them...

3. Who will want to read my rambles anyway?

With my head buried in the sand and my decisions not really made, I came across a blog post by Freya Odell in which she shared her new classroom called Setting the tone. I enjoyed the points she made about the importance of your own space in the classroom, and she had also used my resource in her room. After sharing a few resources on Twitter/tes I was amazed by the lovely responses I recieved from my AF bunting and word wall flashcards (more on these later). Reading Freya's blog and actually feeling I had made something worthwhile has pushed me into writing this blog and perhaps believing that I may have something to share. Even if that something is just a couple of resources, at least it is something.

My classroom

I was extremely excited about getting my own classroom for this year. During my time at University I have worked in Early Years and have loved creating fun and interesting displays and I literally could not wait to have my own space to devote to English and my own classes. I decided to have five displays. One is a Shakespeare display (I read on a tes post a while ago about showing the students that you have a love for English, and Shakespeare is my top choice. Of course...). And the rest are all working walls. I am also looking forward to creating mobiles (with the help of the students, of course) and getting some washing lines up for more work to be displayed. Here are some pictures! (Apologies for poor quality!)

The Shakespeare display

The APP bunting (available here) in action

My interactive 'Word Wall'. I plan to take words off that will be a focus of the lesson, use them as starters/plenaries, target setting - anything really! Also available here!

 My heroes and villains display - with timeline and pictures ready to be joined by opinionated pieces of paper (I hope).

 Clearly I like bunting. What are you reading bunting!

More of the bunting above the Sherlock Holmes display. This will be a working wall so just the title needed!

Lastly my 'Teacher's Dead' display ready to be a working wall.

And there we have it. I kind of realised (whilst I spent hours laminating and cutting things out in my new room) that a large portion of my time is going to spent there. It is worth putting the extra hours in in the hope that my new wonderful students in Septmber really believe that I care about them and the school and my classroom - and I'm ready to work hard for them if they work hard for me!

More blogging coming soon....