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Seating arrangement is one of the most important topic under classroom management. Classroom management refer to the various skills and techniques that teachers use to keep students organised, orderly, focused, attentive, on task and academically productive during the class. However, this essay is going to explore more on the various methods of seating arrangement and how they influence classroom management. There are three most common seating arrangement methods that can be used by the teacher. These include the traditional rows and columns, horseshoe or U-shape and clusters. These are going to be explained in detail outlining their advantages and disadvantages in relation to the classroom size and shape, student age and size, distractions as well as teaching style and objectives of the teacher. The traditional rows and columns seating arrangement as its name suggest is the most widely used by a lot of teachers. This type of classroom seating is suitable for a class structure that is teacher-centred instruction and presentation. The interaction with traditional is usually between the teacher and the student in the form of the student listening and raising hands to answer teacher`s questions. The merits are that it encourages individual work and productivity, minimises disruptions and cheating. It is effective for demonstrations, test taking and easier supervision. The demerits are that it discourages student discussion and group work, focus can be lost easily, uneven distribution of interaction amongst class and difficult for the teacher to move from student to student. Another seating arrangement is the Horseshoe or U-Shape method. This displays teacher and learner-centred instruction and is best suitable for small and medium sized classes. The class is able to interact with a large group format and it is easier for the teacher to deal with students one-on-one. Direct eye contact with the teacher allows students to naturally engage as they feel part of the group. It supports both student to student interaction and teacher to student interaction. The advantages are that it is easier to interact with the entire class, encourages discussion and participation, fosters connection between student and teacher and create a large area for presentations and demonstrations. However, it may be difficult to control behaviour in big classes and large classes may have difficulty in engaging discussions. Clusters are also another method of seating arrangement that can be used in the classroom. Clustering desks into small groups promotes student to student interaction; students develop skills such as communication, problem solving, collaboration and more. These clusters offer safe and comfortable environments for students to share ideas. Students feel part of a large group but mainly responsible to the group that they occupy. It’s an atmosphere that creates opportunities for safe learning. However this comfort also leads to off task behaviour and large increase in noise level and distractions. Behaviour can be an issue with the use of clusters. Having discussed the above seating arrangement methods, it is quite clear that a good seating arrangement in the classroom creates a good atmosphere, encourages interaction and good behaviour. However, the teacher must take into consideration various factors before choosing a seating arrangement such as classroom furniture, classroom size and number of students in the class. The seating arrangement must also cater for students with various problems for example the visually impaired, those with hearing problems and the noise makers in the class in order to achieve best results. Usually noise makers must be seated on the centre of the class where they are directly facing the teacher for them to behave better. Conclusively, the teacher must be able to choose seating arrangement wisely in order to help the class reach its goals and take students to new levels. Seating arrangement helps the management of students and activities as well as providing more responsibility for self learning. There is no rule limiting the teacher on choosing all the three types of seating arrangement in the class, it can be changed any time.
