A case study of bulletin boards in common elementary school classrooms and children’s awareness of them

Abstract

This study investigates classroom bulletin boards and children’s awareness of them, focusing on elementary schools in Matsumoto. We find that on average, 38 bulletin boards were put up in every classroom, and 71% or more were lifestyle-related. Lifestyle-related bulletin boards in the front of the classroom were mostly used for ‘targets’ and ‘rules’, whereas those in the back of the classroom were mostly used for ‘initiatives’ and ‘messages’. For study-related bulletins, those on ‘work motivation’ were mostly posted in the front of the classroom, those on ‘works of learning’ were posted in the back of the classroom and those on ‘reflections on past work’ were posted on the windows and in the corridors. Classrooms for lower grades tended to have more bulletin boards and those for the higher grades tended to have a higher proportion of lifestyle-related bulletin boards. The children were found to have a strong awareness of the types of bulletin boards and were found to have a high level of recognition for ‘plans’, ‘initiatives’ and ‘works of learning’.