What Makes a Good Learning Environment for Children?

There are a few things that make it easier for children to learn successfully and that improve their outcomes in the classroom. Whether you’re a parent or an educator of any kind, it’s in your best interests to understand these things as you want what’s best for your children or your students. Read on to find out what makes a good learning environment for children of all ages.

An Environment That’s Physically and Mentally Safe
First of all, it’s the duty of schools and educators to ensure the environment they create for their students is safe, both physically and mentally. Most schools are adept at making sure that children are physically safe in their care, but not all schools are quite as good at making sure that the kids have their mental wellbeing taken into account from day to day too.

A Supportive Learning Culture
The learning culture in schools is one that should generally be quite supportive and able to facilitate healthy learning opportunities for all. Students should feel free to discuss ideas and share answers, even if they’re wrong. They certainly shouldn’t be shamed for getting things wrong because that creates a toxic environment that’s detrimental to their learning.

Open Access to Resources
Having open access to all of the resources they need is something that’s very important indeed. These days, a large part of that is technology. It’s not just teachers who need access to this stuff; it’s just as important that students have the ability to use laptops, computers and the software that’ll aid them as they learn. It’s definitely something schools should try to make available. The sharing of resources also helps kids who maybe don’t have those opportunities or resources at home.

Space and Smaller Class Sizes
There are lots of studies that show when kids are taught in smaller class sizes, their outcomes tend to be far stronger. Creating more space and having fewer children in the class means that the teacher can give more one-on-one time to each child, and that’s a lot harder in classes with more children present. Classes can expand with a modular classroom to offer more space, and hiring more teachers can allow for smaller classes.

A Place Where Questions Are as Valued as Answers
The school should be a palace where questions are considered just as important as answers. It’s not the job of the teacher to simply demand answers from pupils in response to questions. Instead, you want to encourage them to open up and discuss it as a dialogue. When kids want to ask more questions, it shows a level of engagement that’s very conducive to their learning over the long-term, and that’s vital.

Each of the factors we’ve discussed here today will go a long way towards deciding how strong a learning environment is created inside a classroom. So if you’re an educator looking to make improvements to your school setting, the ideas discussed above are definitely worth taking into account.