Julie Robinson has identified that seating arrangements may impact the behavior and engagement of low attaining students in her English class. Specifically, she notes that boys often distract girls, hindering their development and learning. Her research topic will explore how different seating arrangements—following the school's boy/girl policy, grouping by attainment, or student choice—affect off-task behavior and work quality for a Year 7 set. To study this, she will have students complete literacy tasks under the various seating structures, collect data through questionnaires, focus groups, observations, and assessing student work. The goal is to determine if seating can influence behavior and learning outcomes.

1. Centre for Professional Education
PGCE SD MA1 Research-in-practice Planner
Name: Julie Robinson Subject: English Date: 17th
October 2013
Selected area of focus: Behaviour
(ie Inclusion, Assessment, Language and Literacy, or other agreed field)
Section 1 – The Research Topic:
• Your proposed title: The Impact of Seating Arrangements on Behaviour for
Low Attaining Students
• The focus (ie teaching/learning/ pupil development etc) Pupil development in
terms of being able to work independently and as a group without going off
task and behaving inappropriately.
• What subject specific area or problem have you identified? Major problem
identified is that the boys distract the girls and therefore this is having an
impact on pupil development and engagement in English.
• Why is this topic important to your professional development? Without the right
classroom environment, behaviour of pupils impacts upon teaching
behaviour and learning outcomes. In my experience the school policy of
sitting boy/girl next to each other is not wholly effective and I would like to
explore alternatives.
• What evidence from different sources do you have to support the
issue/topic/problem that you have identified? ( ie data, lesson observation notes,
teacher comments, SoW, pupils’ work etc) Pupil’s work; lesson observations, pupil
engagement, repetition of instructions due to disruption by those sitting
next to them.
Section 2 – The Literature Review:
• What topics/concepts will form the focus of your review? Seating arrangements,
behaviour, gender studies, child development, peer relationships and
influence.
• What sources/authors/research/readings have/will you refer to? I will use the key
terms above to research the question.

2. (The sections below are optional at this stage)
Section 3 – The Teaching and Learning:
• Which group(s) are you proposing to work with?
• Year 7 Set 4 – 16 pupils (10 girls and 6 boys)
• Which topic(s) will be involved?
• Horror genre – writing their own horror story
• What are the key aims of this topic?
• Improve literacy skills alongside English subject specific key concepts and
skills.
• How does this topic support your proposed research plan?
• The tasks can be varied between independent working and group working.
Pupil’s work can then be assessed to see whether seating arrangements can
impact on their behaviour and if this is reflected in the work they produce.
Section 4 – Methodology/Data Collection Plan
• Describe the sequence of your planned intervention (ie what are you going to do)
• Lesson 1 and 2: School policy seating arrangement – boy/girl
• Lesson 3 and 4: seating according to attainment grades ie: high attainment
with low attainment
• Lesson 5 and 6: pupils choose where they sit
• What particular method(s) for data collection will you use and why?
Questionnaires after each two lessons
Focus group of 6 pupils – 3 boys and 3 girls after each 2 lesson cycle.
Questions will be semi-structured to allow for feedback from pupils.
Observations by non-participant to record off-task behaviour using pre-defined
checklist.
The pupil’s work will then be used to inform discussion.