Are you setting up for September and getting classrooms and outdoor areas ready for children to enter and hit the ground running? Whether you are new to the EYFS or an experienced Early Years teacher, effective EYFS practice requires clarity of vision. Before the new school year begins, it’s the perfect time to create clear plans and organise furniture and resources effectively. Llewella Ivins and Andy Burt are Early Excellence consultants. In this blog they will help you and your whole team discover essential EYFS classroom setup tips for organising your space, planning resources, and creating a productive learning environment.

This article is also available to listen to as a podcast:

Summer is a natural time to think about preparation. We might be excited, especially if we are moving into the EYFS for the first time, starting at a new school, or setting up a new classroom. You might even be an ECT and this is your very first time setting up your own Early Years classroom. While it can be daunting, it’s an exciting prospect! There are many exciting things to think about, but it’s crucial to get them right.

Sometimes, it’s easy to fall into the ‘Pinterest trap’ of focusing on making the classroom look beautiful and exciting. However, it’s essential to think about how to make the most of the space, as the environment is so important in the Early Years. The environment is where children do most of their learning, so it needs to be spot on. 

The article aims to provide tips on auditing the environment and on thinking critically about what needs to be ready for September. The EYFS Classroom Setup Tips are: 

1. Ask Questions About the Classroom Space
2. Challenge Existing Practices
3. Bring Your Team on the Journey
4. Is the Classroom Space Effective?
5. Does Storage Encroach on our Classroom Environment?
6. What Resources to Keep?
7. The Difference Between Resources and Toys?
8. Free Provision Audits
9. Planning: Lots of Possibilities with Fewer Resources
10. More FREE Support Materials

Ask Questions About the Classroom Space

Andy has moved classrooms quite a few times over the years and knows the importance of taking stock when moving into a new classroom. Seeing the environment with fresh eyes is a valuable opportunity to look at the space critically. When we’ve been teaching for a little while, we get used to seeing our provision in the same way. We get used to seeing the home corner in that area of the room. We get used to seeing the space being used in the same way that it perhaps has been for a while.

It’s important to ask plenty of questions in order to reflect on your classroom space. Why is the furniture arranged in this way? Why have we always put the reading corner in that space? Which areas of provision need the most physical space? Or need to be near another area of provision? Ask lots of questions about the space itself and how it’s used.

Challenge Existing Practices

When Llewella moved from a different key stage into Early Years for the first time, she found it exciting but also challenging to step into a new space. She also knew she had to ask lots of questions!

Her two Reception classrooms were side by side with interlocking doors, with a sliver of an outdoor space. The classrooms were fine but she knew that children need to be moving more than that space would allow. She went to have a look around the whole area of the school and noticed that the Nursery class had access to a wonderful large outdoor space with grass and loads of room for children to explore. This is really rare in an inner-city Birmingham school! She then noticed that there were two Year One classrooms that also had the same kind of classrooms as hers. They had outdoor access to that Nursery outdoor space, and they didn’t really use that space at all; it was just used for the Nursery.

Llewella asked the Senior Leadership Team about the possibility that Reception and Year One could do a swap. Reception would be able to share the same outdoor space as Nursery and would have access to that large space. Year One would also get their own smaller outdoor space that they could use for enquiry learning as well. Her suggestion was accepted, and it worked really well for the school. 

This example emphasises the importance of challenging existing practices and asking questions about the setup. What is best for the children might not always align with what is easiest for the adults.

Bring Your Team on the Journey

In the Early Years it’s important to remember that teachers work within a team. When making changes, it is crucial to take the whole team along on the journey. While it might be tempting to make changes during the school holidays, it’s important to ensure that the rest of the team are involved to avoid upsetting them or causing confusion.

You want to have that buy in from the whole team. Just as you would not make significant changes without consulting the children, it’s equally important to consult the other adults involved to ensure everyone feels ownership over the space.

“If you’re new coming into this classroom or new coming into this school, the other adults will be quite wary of change. They’ll be quite cautious about change, about not being sure as to whether you’re going to bring a lot of change with you. Whilst it’s important to look at the space with a new pair of eyes and to really think critically about it, at the same time to take people with you on that journey is important. Make sure that you talk with the rest of the team, that you share your thinking, and you gain trust, through being part of this change together. Try not to make lots of big changes without other members of your team being around. It’s always very tempting to go in during the school holidays when there’s nobody else around and to change absolutely everything so that you can say, ‘wow, look at all of this that I’ve now put in place!’ But you’ve got to be quite careful that if the rest of your team haven’t been part of that, then they are upset that you have moved or changed something and are now don’t know where things are, then actually that can take a while to build that trust back up. It’s a tricky one because it’s a balancing act. We often will want to make changes but remember that it’s a team effort. If you change a lot of things without that team, particularly if you’re a new team, it can take a while to build that trust up.”

Andy Burt, Early Excellence Consultant

Is the Classroom Space Effective?

When moving into a new space or classroom, the first consideration is whether the different areas are being used as effectively as possible. Are they currently set up to maximise their potential? If not, what might be the reasons?

As someone new to the space, you might notice issues that others have overlooked. For instance, is the flooring restricting the use of the classroom? If the flooring limits the variety of tactile experiences like sand, water, dough, paint, and workshop areas, it’s worth questioning. If the classroom has too much carpet space, it could reduce the opportunities for these activities. This would be a significant loss. Consider whether the flooring is affecting your ability to offer a full range of provision.

Then consider the space itself:

• Is the space used effectively? Is it being used effectively all of the time? 
• Is that carpet space in the right place within the room or does it get in the way? 
• What about the doorways in and out? Are we using the right doorways to access different areas? 
• Would it be easier if children came in or went out using a different doorway? 

There are all sorts of things that actually you can spot as a new person, that have perhaps just become part of a routine that people don’t notice anymore. Llewella encounters this frequently as an Early Excellence consultant when she visit schools to create classroom design plans. She often identifies issues like coat pegs taking up an entire wall inside the classroom, limiting space for other provisions. Ask yourself, can we be creative with the space?  Is there another location for those coat pegs?

Similarly, consider the number of tables in the room. How can we reduce them to ensure there is enough space for both provision and the children, particularly in Reception and Year One, where group time is also needed? It’s about finding the right balance. If you’re new to a school, asking these questions might reveal that changes can be made, especially if things have been done the same way for a long time. It’s perfectly reasonable to question the current setup.

Andy agrees wholeheartedly that the idea of ensuring effective use of space is crucial. Those cloakroom pegs could consume a considerable amount of classroom space that you don’t necessarily need to be using in that way.

Does Storage Encroach on our Classroom Environment?

Storage is another important factor to consider. It’s essential to differentiate between storage that’s there for the children to access, as in its part of a provision area, against storage which is to keep something for another time or another day. The two things are different.

As somebody who is new to an Early Years environment, really look critically at the classroom space. Is a lot of the space being given over to storage of teacher resources? Is there a better way of doing it? Is there a different space that could be used for the storage of resources?

“As teachers or practitioners in the Early Years, I think pretty much everybody would say that we haven’t got enough storage. However, I tend to find that whatever space we have got for storage, we will fill it! I think we’ve got to be careful that that doesn’t then encroach on our classroom environment. We don’t want to be using up space we could have been using for provision.“

Andy Burt, Early Excellence Consultant

What Resources to Keep?

As a starting point, look at what you’ve got stored and whether you need it. In order to do that I would go through an auditing process; we’ve got FREE Classroom Audit Tools that can help you with that.

When you look at what resources and materials you’ve got overall, categorise them. Make sure that they earn their place in your classroom or in your storage area. Consider how best to use each resource. Is it an integral part of the Continuous Provision? Would it best serve as an enhancement at some point in the future? Or is it a resource that you tend to only use during direct teaching sessions? Categorise your resources and remove unnecessary resources that don’t earn their place in your environment. 

A resource to keep has got to be: 

• Continuous Provision; resources that will be there for the children all of the time and will be out in your classroom every day.
• Enhanced Provision; a set of resources that you will bring out for a short period of time, at some point in the year, usually based on a project or a topic or a predictable interest. It might be something linked to mini beasts, or something linked to superheroes, or perhaps something linked to Christmas.
• Directed Teaching; a resource that you’re going to need to use just for direct teaching purposes or perhaps focused group work.

If it doesn’t fit into any of those three categories, then ask yourself if you really need it.

Then ask questions about the resources.

• When was the last time it was used?
• What do the children do with this resource?
• Does it lead to lots of possibilities?
• Does it lead to lots of opportunities for language development?
• Does it lead to children making links or making connections?
• How is this resource used when it is available?

You often find there are some resources that don’t usually come out that often and when they do come out, they often lead to issues as the children don’t know what to do with those resources, or they lead to behaviour issues. Those are the sorts of resources that we probably don’t need.

Be ruthless when evaluating what to keep. When new to a classroom and that cupboard is absolutely jam packed full of stuff, our advice is to empty everything out and conduct a thorough audit. If an item does not fit into one of the above three categories – Continuous Provision, Enhanced Provision, or Directed Teaching – then it likely does not deserve its place in the classroom or storage space.

The Difference Between Resources and Toys?

Look out for resources that don’t offer more than what the children are likely to have at home, such as toys that have been donated. Especially with tight school budgets, it can be tempting to accept every offer from parents or other teachers. This often results in acquiring many closed resources with limited learning possibilities, such as princess castles or remote-control cars. While these items might be suitable for home environments, they may not provide significant learning opportunities in the classroom. It can be very hard, but avoid falling into the trap of accepting everything.

It’s important to consider the resources as ‘resources’ and not to view or refer to them as ‘toys’. Andy believes “toys are typically quite limited in what children can do with them and are usually items children already have at home. Move beyond the concept of toys and adopt a higher standard as an educational establishment by recognising that you provide high-quality ‘resources’, not toys.”

Look through your resources as a team, so that there is collective ownership over what is kept and what is not. This way, everyone understands which resources earn their place and why, as this forms the foundation of the planning process. The question of why a resource has earned its place in the classroom is really the beginning of Continuous Provision planning.

There are numerous resources on the Early Excellence website that can assist in getting started with reviewing provision and thinking carefully about which resources are necessary for the various provision areas and which materials deserve their place within those spaces.

These resources can be found on the Early Excellence website in the ‘Ideas & Inspiration’ section. There is a section with Provision Audits, another with some Continuous Provision Plans, and Training Videos, including one on Room Planning. This is a great starting point for considering the key principles of organising a new space.

FREE Provision Audits

There is a FREE Indoor Provision Audit and a FREE Outdoor Provision Audit. The indoor audit breaks down indoor provision into different areas, such as investigations and problem-solving, language and literacy, or maths, science, and engineering. The tool helps review which Continuous Provision areas could be included in the classroom to support each key area of learning. For instance, for investigations and problem-solving, you could include a water area, dry sand area, wet sand area, or a dough area. The audit tool allows users to tick off whether these areas are ready, resourced, and set up. It also prompts consideration of the resources that accompany these areas, such as water resources that support maths, science, and storytelling, or dough resources for investigating materials and pretend baking.

Users can go through the audit tool, tick off items, and give themselves a score out of eight for each section. At the end, the total score will indicate how prepared the indoor environment is. It will show whether more support is needed in setting up certain areas or focusing on a specific area of learning, or it may suggest where additional elements could be added to enhance and support learning.

This free audit tool is an excellent starting point for reviewing the environment, assessing the space and resources available, and preparing for September. It is available to download here.

Planning: Lots of Possibilities with Fewer Resources

Once the provision has been audited, and once the idea of what will be included in the classroom environment has been considered, that auditing process will serve as the starting point for carefully planning which Continuous Provision resources will be present in that environment. Because these resources will be available all year round, they must earn their place on the shelf. Each resource must have a clear purpose, and every team member should know exactly what those resources are called and why they are included. It cannot simply be a collection of items that ended up there.

For example, in the Water Area, there will be a core set of resources that everyone will know will be available throughout the entire year. Instead of having numerous buckets, they might have two or three that have been carefully selected; perhaps a small, medium, and large bucket in terms of capacities. One bucket might be clear, another might have a spout for pouring, and another might include measurements to indicate how much water is contained. These subtle differences mean that within three different containers, there are numerous possibilities rather than a surplus of resources. The focus is shifting from having an abundance of items to offering a wide range of possibilities. Instead of simply accumulating resources, aim for lots of possibilities, which is always more effective.

In the water area this could include measuring cylinders, scoops, a small set of carefully chosen buckets, and small containers for exploring smaller capacities. You could also consider materials for transporting water, such as tubing and funnels, as well as containers with holes, like a colander, or water wheels; anything that offers opportunities for water to flow in different ways and to explore the properties of water.

Imaginative play within the water area would also be encouraged, with items like sea creatures, divers, seashells, pebbles, stones, or driftwood. The emphasis is on the number of possibilities rather than the quantity of items. It is the range of possibilities that contributes to the effectiveness of a provision area, and all of this must be carefully planned.

Both Andy and Llewella stress that planning involves more than just the short-term planning done on a weekly basis.

“Planning is about planning for the whole environment. It’s about planning for what goes into that classroom. It’s about planning for how you use the space and planning for which areas of provision you have and what resources go into those areas of provision, as well as how those materials are stored and what the role of the adult is within that space.”

Andy Burt, Early Excellence Consultant

Alongside the audit tool, there are FREE Examples of Continuous Provision Planning available, as well as the full Continuous Provision Planning Guides that can be purchased. Both are excellent resources, particularly for those new to this approach and they will help you with all of those planning decisions.

Share Your Classroom Pictures

If you’re getting your classroom environment ready, whenever that might be, then do let us know how you get on! Send photographs, share with us how you’ve got on.

Are you happy with your classroom environment?  How is it set out? Which area are you proudest of? Let us know. You’ll be able to connect with us on social media platforms on the links at the bottom of this page. It’d be great to hear from you!

More FREE Support Materials

If this list of EYFS Classroom Setup Tips has really got you thinking, then it’s worth knowing that there are lots of free materials on this website that will be a really big help. From Free Training Videos to Practice & Pedagogy Blogs to lots more recorded EYFS Podcast Episodes. There are all kinds of things on this website. Start in the Ideas & Inspiration section and you’ll find all kinds of materials to support you with your practice.