The key to digital classroom management is monitoring and consistency - but first, you need to set the right digital classroom rules to build on.

There is currently a wealth of providers in education offering great assessment content to Primary schools, all of which use a different style and approach. As a result, it can often be extremely difficult for Primary school leaders to determine which content provider fits best with their school’s assessment needs.

Increasingly, we are seeing schools turn to technological methods of teaching, communicating, reporting, monitoring students’ progress and behaviour and, well, pretty much every other aspect of school life too. With students being permitted to use personal devices for educational purposes in many schools, and homework and lesson tasks being set online, technology has become an integral part of the way teachers teach and students learn. Ask a 21st Century student to conduct their homework using only an encyclopaedia, no doubt they’ll look at you confused and aghast.

Year in, year out, teachers will spot trends in their classroom. They’ll observe how, for instance, the more lively and easily distracted pupils grab seats at the back of the room, as far away as possible from the teacher’s admonishing gaze; how the quietly studious pupils shy away from volunteering an opinion during class discussions and the natural entertainers take any opportunity to get a laugh from their admiring peers. Same game, different players. They’ll also notice how similar groups are formed organically within the class as children, in line with natural human instincts, form bonds with people who are intrinsically similar to themselves and with whom they can relate.

Global education pioneers Promethean are heading to Bett 2016 to spread the word of collaboration. Taking into account employers’ increasing emphasis on the need for collaborative skills, the edu-resource experts will be attending the London conference to show teachers how these abilities can be developed. The Bett Show is taking place at ExCeL London from 20th - 23rd January, and Promethean will be meeting attendees at Stand B99.

When it comes to classroom design, any teacher will tell you it’s all about managing the space you’re given and adapting your teaching style to suit the room and your class size. So of course, the opportunity to completely change your classroom opens up a world of possibility, offering the chance to create a layout that’s easier to control, has better circulation and enables new, more collaborative teaching methods.

Learning environments have developed considerably over the years, and are certainly more engaging and exciting than ever. Our school is not complacent in terms of progress, and we continue to evolve, adopting new, more efficient way of working across all areas of the school.

“Something wicked this way comes” is a phrase that every teacher I know can relate to. You don’t have to be a fan of The Bard’s wonderfully evocative imagery to know that within every classroom there exists, just beneath the surface, a complex interplay of social and emotional dynamics that if expressed can make teaching almost impossible - unless one is mindful of the emergent possibilities and exquisitely judicious when dealing with the consequences, should they be necessary.

Eden Learning Spaces, a leading supplier of soft furnishings for schools, has found that bean bags could improve reading concentration. This was the conclusion from a primary experiment carried out with a class of 30 children aged six to seven years old, with findings indicating that levels of comfort and concentration during independent reading can be increased using Eden Learning Spaces’ specially designed Bean Bag Reading Chair.

Is the traditional classroom setting too archaic? Computer Science teacher Adam Speight looks at how he’s designed his Kings Monkton School classroom with progressive learning in mind.

The traditional model of what a secondary school looks like from the outside is diminishing all the time. If you look at any new schools which are being built you will see that vast amounts of money are being spent on how they look cosmetically-speaking. However, look inside them and you’ll see the classrooms within look very much the same as those found within traditional school buildings. This is because these classrooms are normally designed so that the desks are arranged in long lines and the teaching experience is very much teacher-led. This is a big problem, because if learners are to be fully engaged within a learning environment, then the learning environment must be designed in a way which suits them and enhances both teaching and learning.