ABSTRACT
When I began my teaching career I thought that simply rearranging the classroom, from rows into groups of desks, would ensure that my classes worked together as groups. However, as time went on I came to realise that what was happening in my classroom was that pupils were working individually on the questions I had set, conferring on answers from time to time and then going back to individual work. What was definitely not happing, despite the arrangements of the desks, was any form of collaborative group work. I began to realise that if I wanted my pupils to work in a collaborative way then I had to offer them activities that would require them to do so, and that I needed to help them develop the ways of working together that would enable them to work in a truly collaborative fashion. Moving the tables was only the start!
