Benefits of Involving Children in Planning School Signage
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Children respond to attractive and bright colours. School signage can be plain and dull and in no way is something children will look at. It is like asking them to read a newspaper. They will not do it. Boring signs and newspapers are for dull grown-ups, we have far more important things to be doing, such as how much pocket money Mum will give us for sweets on Friday evening. Signs and children are diametrically opposed. It is plain boring. However, one way to grab their attention, is to allow children to design signs for schools.
Brightly Coloured School Signs
Children are naturally drawn to bright colours. Outrageously so. Hence why young childrens’ toys are brightly coloured. Colouring books and crayons have been around for a few generations. School signage is a fundamental need for any school and there are plenty of them required. The standard signs are plain and boring and they have a use, for safety and information purposes. Make them brightly coloured, by the children.
Benefits
Children do respond to colours and love making things. Today, there is a wide range of useful tools to encourage children to explore their creative minds and all schools need signs. Inside and out. Bearing this in mind, there are many psychological benefits to encouraging children to take pride in their school and its surroundings. Children love being with other children. Peer to peer social networking never fails to work. In making their own signs, they will group together and guaranteed, they will construct their own ideas among themselves and will develop a team exercise and be able to delegate each other to complete a task. What his brings is leadership building, delegation skills and help communication skills between each other. It is is often said that twins speak to each other in their own language. Give a group of children a blank sheet of paper and ask them to write with pictures “Cloakroom” We will be faced with a set of wonderful creations with varied and bright colours.
Social Skills
We all want our children to be socially engaging people. A group of children working together on their own signs for school will bring about a level of social interaction with their peers and encourage esteem building skills in learning to talk to each other. This can also encourage a quieter child to engage and bring about their own ideas to the table. It’s a bit like standing at a bus stop with other waiting passengers, one person looks up and the other people will follow suit. Watch children seek out each other for ideas and learn to engage and ask questions of each other.
Self Esteem
Self esteem has us all rolling around in a state of confusion. We all feel insecurites, yet children can reel off nursery rhymes and read stories out loud. Kids always have more fun and have little sense of fear. There is little in the way of low self esteem with children and building a set of signs to proudly display and show off to their parents will have them bubbling with enthusiasm. It would be hard not to enjoy their sheer pleasure at being awarded their sign up in public for all to see. Signs for schools are a necessary must. Get the children to build them and watch our next generation come up with brilliant and engaging ideas. The local radio station can get involved and the competitive streak can be brought out with competitions for the best signs.
Article by Ross Davies
Ross Davies writing for Signs 4 Education the experts in signs for schools and colleges in the UK.
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