An Interview with Mr Bishop

The school now has some fantastic displays created by our marvellous teachers and TLAs. We talked to Mr Bishop today to find out more about these displays and why NAIS uses them.  

Question: Why do you use display spaces? 
Mr Bishop:  At NAIS, we use display spaces for a number of reasons, mainly to exhibit exemplary work to establish standards. But there are many other reasons behind some of our displays. We celebrate the success of individuals by displaying what they have done. Look at what the Year 4s did in their Iron man pictures. (Photo 1).

We use them to introduce and stimulate interest in a new topic. It can provide key vocabulary for the children to use in their class work, as Mr Gadsby has done here with his Ancient Greeks display (Photo 2).

Question: What are "working walls"?

Mr Bishop: Working walls are used to demonstrate to the children the process of writing and to use as an interactive tool throughout the day. These can be word banks or simply showing the stages of the writing process. Mrs Charlier and Miss Dowding have made great working walls that the children can build on as they learn more which supports their learning (Photo 3 and 4).

Question: What do the children think of the boards? 

They love them! The display boards celebrate children’s successes and gives them a chance to show off what they've done. It's not only this though - we also can use displays to initiate action, to issue a challenge or to involve children in a particular learning process like this display on feeling proud of yourself (Photo 5).

A display can also be the outcome of collective effort over time, the climax and focus of a significant piece of classwork like this timeline of explorers in Year 2 and this jungle scene from Year 1. (Photo 6 and 7).

Question: How does this fit in with High Performance Learning? 

Mr Bishop: All of our displays remind children of the High Performance Learning skills they have been using to complete their work and what they have learnt. Each time they walk past, they will remember the activity or learning point which further embeds our educational philosophy (Photo 8).

Please do take a look at our wall display photos attached below.