The Learning Environment

• The child is a capable and resourceful constructor of their own learning.
• The teacher / carer is a facilitator and co-constructor of learning.
• The child’s community, family and teacher / caregivers are partners in a child’s education and co-architects of a child’s wellbeing.
•  Learning occurs optimally in social and collaborative contexts.
• The development of dispositions to learn underpin learner success.
• Each child is unique.
• Democratic practices such as diversity and social justice enable children to become active members of our society.
• Environmental sustainability is dependent on children developing a commitment to the environment and a disposition to create rather than to consume.

Well-defined, consistent play spaces help:

• children feel comfortable in the learning environment and plan their play;
• avoid sensory overload
• scaffold positive peer interaction
• development of self confidence
• children readily find, use and return the materials
• children make choices, particularly when diverse items are stored in matching containers

• It leads children to use the provisions to confidently and independently explore, work and solve problems and to sustain engagement
• Children are able to independently find, use and return materials
• Children and adults are comfortable in the room
• Children’s learning is visible to adults and peers
• Children offer their ideas for investigations and contribute materials to the classroom environment
• The children work collaboratively on shared interests.

‘When these happenings become regular occurrences, the children in your care are becoming

capable and resourceful constructors of their own knowledge and you, their teacher, will have become a facilitator and co-constructor of their knowledge. Now, your classroom environment will be operating as the third teacher’. S.Ludlow, Maximising the potential of the ‘third teacher’.