Imagine any classroom or communal space across your school without its chairs. Odd isn’t it? These super functional items are critical to students’ learning and social experience, so it’s important to choose the perfect school chairs for your school and students.
We can help. Remember this short checklist of considerations when making your choice.
The School Chair Checklist
1. Comfort, Comfort, Comfort
Comfortable students are more relaxed, and therefore more engaged, focused and effective. Seems obvious right? Though there are plenty out there, we don’t really need scientific studies to know that making students comfortable helps to improve wellbeing and academic performance.
When choosing your school chairs, the comfort basics are to ensure that each class has application, age, height and size-appropriate seating, that offers a comfortable seating position for students, and ensures their backs are supported adequately.
But you can go further. Research shows that offering a choice, to enable students to sit as they feel most comfortable, increases engagement, motivation and creativity. So, why not explore the following alternative school chairs, in addition to your typical classroom chair:
- Wheeled chairs, and adjustable stools that swivel, wobble, or rock, are great for students who need movement while they work.
- Bean bag chairs are perhaps the ultimate choice for comfort. Browse our wide range of chairs, or our school-specific range, (including Armchair, Mini armchair, Secondary Seat, Secondary Chair, and Wedgie models, which all offer back support). All our bean bag chairs are available in a huge range of sizes, fabrics and colours.
- Oversized floor cushions, like our Primary Scatter model, and those in our Sit-On Cushion range, can be a great option for certain applications and settings.
2. Different Chairs for Different Settings and Spaces
While your science lab is likely to need tall stool seating for the high worktops typically found in these settings, and your ICT suites and computer rooms are likely to need wheeled office chairs, when it comes to choosing school chairs for other classrooms and school spaces, one size does not fit all.
- As we touched on in the point above, you can provide a range of chair types in a typical classroom, with different kinds of seating around different tables across the room, and provide students with a choice.
- Similarly, certain classes that require creative thinking, discussion and collaboration, may be better equipped with more comfortable, alternative school chairs.
- Promote relaxation, comfort, and communication amongst students by adding sofas in your communal student areas. Consider both conventional models, and bean bag alternatives which are not only easy to clean, but available in a wider range of shapes and sizes, so there’s one for every space.
- Kit out your library and study spaces with sumptuous armchairs where students can relax with a book or focus on their work. Traditional-style bean bags, bean bag armchairs, or our Bookworm model, are a great alternative option for this application.
- Consider outdoor seating options when choosing your school chairs. Creating spaces for your students to calmly come together outdoors, could help to cut down on mischief making at break times.
3. Versatility & Flexibility
The versatility of school seating is key to helping you to get the most from your investment.
In a similar vein to our previous point, when shopping for school chairs, be sure to explore seating options that are suitable for a range of school spaces, classroom layouts, and lesson types across multiple school departments and settings.
Seating that can be adapted to serve a range of needs is also worthy of investigation. There are many options to explore, but for alternative seating, certain bean bag chair models can be moulded into different shapes to help facilitate a range of applications, like our Secondary Slab model.
Remember that lightweight and easily cleaned, stored, stacked, and folded school chairs are enormously useful for teachers, cleaners, and students alike.
4. Durability, Quality & Longevity
Your students work and play hard, and the school chairs you choose for each area across the school need to be made from durable, high quality materials to ensure they last longer than a term, and can stand up to your students’ hammering.
When exploring options, look for testing certificates, note the thickness of frame, and the materials used to gauge your chosen seating’s durability.
Our bean bag chairs, sofas and stools, are used across schools, colleges and universities across the UK, due to their durability, high-quality UK manufacturing, upholstery-grade materials, and ease of cleaning.
Ensuring that your chosen school chairs come with an appropriate warranty is also key, to give you a course of action, should they not be able to withstand the harsh school environment.
5. Chair Design & Colour
Choosing aesthetically pleasing school chairs, or seating with a strong visual identity, can positively impact the engagement and motivation of your students, help to improve their mood, confidence, morale, and boost their participation in tasks and discussions.
While opting for traditional seating can give the impression that your school has a stiff, hard, and perhaps old school approach, opting for more modern school chairs in brighter colours can connote a more dynamic and bold approach to learning.
What’s more, colours can help you to create the perfect space for its application. Bright colours can help to maximise their creativity and willingness to learn, while using neutral tones can help you to create a calm atmosphere.
At GBB, we can support your school with bean bag seating made in a range of fabrics, in almost any colour you can imagine, including patterned designs. We can even brand your bean bag chairs with your school's name, logo and colourways.
We also offer seating models in a range of fun designs, such as fruit, vegetables, book covers, animals, and more.
So, remember our checklist on your search for the perfect school chairs for your school, and keep GreatBeanBags in mind for your alternative seating.
