How do the teachers in your school design their classroom seating plans?
Our research tells us that teachers believe seating plans have a major influence on students’ behaviour and learning. But many teachers have to rely on paper, sticky notes or spreadsheets to create their plans, making it a burdensome task.
That’s why we’re so excited about the upcoming release in the SIMS Next Gen programme – SIMS Seating Plans.
SIMS Seating Plans gives teachers in primary and secondary schools an easy way to map out seating arrangements with the benefit of student information in SIMS to inform their decisions. Here’s how the features in SIMS Seating Plans will help you:
1. Plan your classroom layout for effective learning
Are you teaching in quirky room in an old building or a standard 1960s style classroom? SIMS Seating Plans helps you set up a template of the seats in your classroom, whatever the shape and size, and you can reuse it for as many lessons as you take in that room. You can create a layout for each different room you use, or copy the template for classrooms with the same dimensions and number of desks.
2. Allocate student places digitally
Once you have the classroom layout, you can select the students you want to place by clicking and then dropping their photograph onto a seat on the screen. Start by placing the students who need to be in specific places – maybe there’s a neurodivergent student in the class who prefers to keep the same seat at the front of the room for all their lessons. There’s also an option to auto allocate students, either in alphabetical order or at random.
3. Factor in students’ learning needs
A student’s place in the classroom can make a lot of difference to their learning and wellbeing. SIMS Seating Plans synchronises with your student data held in SIMS, so you can design a seating plan with students’ needs in mind. For instance, you might decide to seat a student with EAL somewhere they can easily hear and understand the teacher, or a student with a disability might need to sit on the side of the classroom nearest the door for safer access.
4. Make quick seating changes
A seating plan is an evolving masterpiece, and as the academic year moves on you’ll probably need to tweak your original plan. There is an autosave feature in SIMS Seating Plans so it’s easy to make adjustments as you go along, and an undo/redo button means you can go back and catch a change you didn’t mean to make.
Teachers can use SIMS Seating Plans on their tablet or laptop, in the classroom or remotely. So if you have an idea about how to reorganise your Year 9 historians when you’re working from home, you can set it up straight away. When you have created a new seating plan you can show it on the big screen so when students come in they know where to sit.
5. Share notes with other teachers
Our early adopter schools tell us they often need to share advice with colleagues about the best place to seat students. For instance, a particular student shouldn’t sit near the window because they are easily distracted, or these two students don’t work so well together. So, we created a notes feature in SIMS Seating Plans. Rather than having to catch a colleague to explain, you can create a note for other teachers taking this class suggesting which pupils might need moving or keeping apart.
6. Part of a bigger school software future
As SIMS Next Gen continues to evolve, SIMS Seating Plans will become an integral part of the new Class View module. This promises to be a gamechanger, creating a complete classroom management tool for teachers by bringing together key pupil information and tasks all in one place. At a glance, teachers will see actionable insights and make data driven decisions to support early intervention.
This month sees the release of SIMS Seating Plans: a new tool in SIMS Next Gen to help teachers create, adapt and share seating plans to support teaching and learning. Watch this video to find out more.