Tips and Tricks to Make Your Form Board Shine... by M9!

Stand out from the crowd!

This term we didn't win the Melbourne form board prize, although we did get a 'special mention' and an 'It's time to give someone else a chance' comment. M9 were slightly disappointed but, to be honest, this term the standards have been high...very high (more about this later). Our form don't take defeat lying down, in fact it's spurred us on -  M9 already have next year's form board in the creative pipeline and while the rest of the school were enjoying their end of term form parties, this was the scene in room 44...

In this blog, we thought we'd share some of the tips that we've learnt along the way; we feel qualified to do so after winning several form board certificates and bags of chocolate in the past couple of years, so here goes...

                                               

1. Be creative. This might sound obvious, but creativity is about taking risks and trying new ideas. Discuss what interests your form and chose a theme. A form who are incredibly interested in a theme are more likely to want to become involved in contributing to the form board.

2. Embrace the competition. As mentioned earlier, this year form board standards have been particularly high. This is a great thing. Students love eyeing-up the competition, spying on the work of other forms and discussing who has the best noticeboard. M12's amazing form board took the prize this term, with their larger than life Twitter board, but take a closer look at the small hash-tag on their tweet...

3.Get a rocking background to make your form board 'pop'. This year M9 are going with a chess board theme from Alice in Wonderland. K11 had an excellent background this term too, which certainly made their World Cup theme apparent...

4. Use Pinterest to collect ideas and have members of your form adding ideas to the Pinterest board. Check out M9's Alice in Wonderland Pinterest board. Then turn your inspiration into reality...

5. Use laminated cards for weekly attendance, pupils receiving praise letters and 'star of the week'. This way you can easily keep them updated with a wipe-off whiteboard marker. Give a member of the form the responsibility of keeping these regularly updated. 

6. Use photographs. Keep your board really personal, as this will let the personality of your form shine through. Photographs are an excellent way of doing this. Photographs also engage the attention of visitors. In M9 we keep a gallery of form photos, so that pupils can see how they've changed since Y7. Embarrassing, but essential!

7. Include mementos from your form assembly, photos, PowerPoint slides, quotes, etc. Assemblies take a lot of planning and you should keep these things, as a lasting memento of your hard work.

8. Try to include excellent examples of SEAL work. M9 went origami crazy last year; we made dozens of cranes and flooded our board with them!  

9. Make a start with what you have. Some forms might have a bigger form board or more artistic students, but you must think outside the box and play to your strengths! The first day of term is an excellent place to start, plan and discuss ideas; get your form captain to delegate tasks and above all have fun!

                                               

10. Finally, keep your eyes on the prize...

and of course the chocolate!

                                                        

                                           

Please leave your comments and any other tips for a winning form board below...

Welcome to Claytonia!

                                       
Claytonia is our space for sharing learning and teaching strategies at Clayton Hall Business and Language College. This blog will allow us to enhance our connections in the three following areas:

1. between colleagues in order to share and collaborate
2. between teachers and pupils, in order to celebrate success and to share learning resources
3. between home and school in order to involve parents in their children's learning at Clayton Hall Business and Language College

What's in a name?

After some considerable thought the name, 'Claytonia' was selected by members of the English department at Clayton to promote the idea of a creative learning community. Of course English teachers at Clayton, also love their fantasy fiction and sci-fi! 

Blogging is the way forward!

Lots of schools are beginning to use blogs in many different and exciting ways. The best way to find out how blogging can be useful, is to spend some time exploring other blogs on the web. Follow this link to my Pinterest board to discover more amazing educational blogs...

Please do leave your comments below. Can you think of any other ways that we could use blogging for teaching and learning?