Burlington Infant and Nursery School
In New Malden, Burlington uses Chalk to build tasks alongside children, strengthen oracy and give early years provision a clear purpose.
Burlington Infant and Nursery School is an Ofsted Outstanding infant and nursery school in New Malden, southwest London, and an Inclusion Quality Mark Flagship school. Deputy Head Claire McEvoy introduced Chalk to staff and has since shared it with other schools at a local network meeting.
"You're almost making it with the children, which they really, really enjoy. Because it's their ideas, they relate to it a lot more than just seeing slides."
Claire McEvoy
Deputy Head, Burlington Infant and Nursery School
What Teachers Love
Built With the Children
"These little graphic organisers have been fabulous. A teacher would have scribbled this on a piece of sugar paper. Now you build it with the children, in the lesson."
Brilliant for Oracy
"The hexagonal grids are brilliant for everything, and great for oracy. Talking Heads is brilliant just to get children talking for five minutes at the start of a lesson."
Quick, Easy Assessment
"Brain dump everything you know about the United Kingdom. The retrieval tasks are a really quick, easy assessment tool that teachers just picked up and ran with."
How Burlington Uses Chalk
Purposeful play
In block play, children build the Odd One Out they have chosen and explain why, so they make it alongside talking about it. Vocab Stories sit in the small world area as a scaffold.
Geography & history
Visual Keywords, retrieval tasks on the four countries of the UK, and Examples and Non-examples spark good conversations in topic work.
Shared writing
Instead of modelling text on the board, staff type it into Chalk and the Text Map generates the images there and then. Children watch it being made, so it means more.
Seen in Burlington's classrooms
A few examples Claire shared from the school's own staff training, across EYFS and KS1.
Talking Heads
Children weigh up three views on Mary Seacole, then explain which they agree with and why.
Odd One Out in block play
In the construction area, children build the odd one out they have chosen and explain it out loud.
Graphic organiser
A penguins organiser built with the class, alongside an Antarctica small-world area.
Vocab Stories
Story sequences sit in the small world area as a talk scaffold while children play.
Hexagons
Sorting and connecting materials vocabulary, which Claire rates as great for oracy.
Text Map
Generated live for shared writing, so children watch the symbols being made.
Great Teaching in Practice
Talk before writing
Hexagons and Talking Heads put oracy first, giving young children a structure to reason out loud before anything reaches the page.
Inclusive by design
In a Flagship Inclusion Quality Mark school, clear, simple visuals matter. As Claire puts it, the children have loved how the Odd One Out is "so simple and clear".
Quick enough to do live
"The main thing I kept saying in the presentation is how quick and easy it is, and that you can do it with the children. It's effective enough that you can do it within the lesson."
For an infant school, that speed is the point. Tasks that once meant prepping slides or scribbling on sugar paper now take shape in the moment, built from the children's own ideas, which is exactly why they engage with them.
Looking ahead
Burlington is still early in the journey. Staff are keen, and Claire plans to grow use further, especially across early years, where she sees the biggest potential.
"What we have used has been really, really good. Particularly in early years, you can see the massive benefits."
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Join schools like Burlington in making thinking visible across EYFS and KS1.
Case Study by Chalk Learning • chalklearning.io