How to use school furniture to help with social distancing

As schools are returning, senior leaders will be making plans to ensure that classrooms remain safe environments. And this may mean having to consider some changes to your current arrangements to ensure that social distancing guidelines can be followed. But rather than completely stripping out your existing school furniture, consider how it can help enforce safety policies and continue to enhance pupils’ learning. We look at how to use school furniture to help with social distancing.

Get creative with your spaces

Having desks set out in separated rows is an easy way to achieve social distancing. But you will impact students’ learning if they don’t have opportunities to interact with others.

Arranging your furniture so you can spread your students out in a horseshoe shape is an excellent solution. This semi-circle layout allows you to leave space between students while they all face in towards the centre of the room. This way, they can see the teacher, the board and each other easily without the need to turn around. This means staff can safely build in opportunities for group discussions and student-led demonstrations.

Make use of any mobile furniture in the room

Movable furniture is a true asset in the age of social distancing. Being able to move units allows staff to rearrange their rooms to suit the needs of all their individual classes. If a teacher has a larger group, they can simply push mobile storage units to the edges of the room so that they have a bigger floor space to arrange their seating plans.

Or you can strategically place mobile furniture around the room to form unobtrusive parameters to avoid students mixing. This is particularly useful if you are teaching a practical subject that requires a degree of movement.

Identify your current safety provisions

You may already have plenty of protective barriers in your classrooms without having to buy lots of expensive additional screens. Making use of school furniture that has any form of partition will help students social distance but also focus on their work. This is valuable in spaces like IT facilities where students need to sit closer together or in situations like tests.

School furniture to help with social distancing – where to find out more

Our focus on education and school furniture systems combined with over 35 years expertise in designing, manufacturing and installing nationwide, ensures that we can meet your project requirements. Our products are specified by a wide range of architects and installed across education facilities including nursery, primary, secondary, college, universities and special needs, including Headington Girls School, Oxford; Farnborough College of Technology; and Yateley Community School, Hampshire. You can read more of our education case studies here.

Education furniture from David Bailey

Looking for furniture for a school, university or college refurbishment or new build? We manufacture:

• Wall units
• Base units
• Storage trays
• Worktops
• Mobile furniture

See our full range of education furniture here. Or get in touch to discuss how we may be able to help your latest project.