Dlb tes.co.uk september 18th 2009 dlb: Designing and Supplying School Chairs and Furniture to Education, The Max Chair
1. Behaviour - Features - TES
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Behaviour
Features | Published in TES Newspaper on 18 September, 2009
Comment:
Last Updated: 16 November, 2009
Section: Features
A couple of pupils persistently swing back on their chairs during my class. One even
fell off and hurt his arm the other day. What can I do to convince my class that chairs
are for sitting on and that's that?
For as long as there have been chairs in schools, pupils have taken a peculiar delight in swinging on
them. But the passing of time has made it no less annoying. It is often cited as one of the all time great
classroom irritants.
"It may seem petty, but the constant chair swinging is driving me nuts," says a teacher on the TES online
forum (www.tes.co.uk). "While I'm talking, pupils are either falling off their chair or spinning on one leg."
It frustrated Tom Wates too. The low-level classroom chatter annoyed him, but it was the rhythmic
rocking back and forth that "drove me mad". Every teacher he spoke to agreed. "You'd just be on a bit of
a roll, when someone would fall off their chair and everyone would laugh," says Mr Wates, who taught
PE and maths at a school in Blackheath, southeast London. "It would ruin the flow of the lesson."
Mr Wates felt there wasn't much he could do about the talking, but was sure he could stop the swinging.
He came up with the concept for the Max chair last year, which was then created by the design
company Sedley Place. It has curved legs that prevent rocking and Mr Wates insists that no child can lift
it more than 5cm off the ground.
"At every exhibition I've been to, teachers come up and tell me about pupils with broken arms, stitches or
scars from falling off chairs. For me, it was an annoyance, but for others it's a safety issue."
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Up to 7,000 pupils are admitted to hospital in the UK each year as a result of chair-related accidents,
according to Government statistics. Of those, 70 per cent were caused by rocking backwards.
One teacher says a girl fell back and hit her head on a heater. Another saw a five-year-old fall forwards
and bite through the tip of his tongue. A third pupil's bottom teeth went through his top lip, resulting in
broken teeth and an abundance of blood.
Witnessing such accidents will probably put your pupils off chair tipping for life. For a less dramatic
lesson, TES forum users recommend an early verbal warning. Persistent offenders should then be told to
stand, sit on the floor or even kneel. If this fuels further attention-seeking behaviour, such as pupils
crawling across the floor for laughs, progress up the sanction ladder.
"Make them stand for a week," says a secondary school teacher. "If they are enjoying the attention from
the rest of the class, make everyone stand. Ignore all comments and moans and carry on as normal.
Eventually the others will have a go at the originals for making them stand."
Other tactics include charging pupils for broken chairs, putting warnings in pupils' planners, imposing
detentions or simply indicating with your hands that they should sit properly. "That gets your message
across without you having to stop talking," says one secondary school teacher.
Untippable furniture is another possibility. At approximately £20 per Max chair, it may be a costly option,
but some schools clearly see it as a good investment. Mr Wates has sold 35,000 chairs in the past year,
90 per cent to UK schools.
Mr Wates has left teaching to concentrate on developing school furniture. For those left in the classroom,
the message is clear: either consider specialist furniture or treat chair swinging like the behavioural issue
it is.
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6023383[25/11/2013 11:48:56]
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