Classroom management is the key to being a great teacher and having a great school year. If you don’t have great classroom management your year will be horrible. And you will wonder why you chose this job and why the kids don’t like you…lol, but you have to remember how to start your school year off right. And that is by establishing your classroom management standards from day 1!
- Set class rules and procedures, the first couple weeks of school you should practice these procedures and helping the students to remember the rules. You need to ensure kids know these rules have them recite them back to you, you can give a test. There so many activities that you can do to ensure that the kids know the rules and procedures. Remember this must happen at the beginning of the school year.
- You should have no more than four to five rules. You will have a lot more procedures i.e. on how you want your class to run but keep the rule list short. This way you can ensure students can remember.
- Establish entry and exit routines. For example, how to enter your room do they get materials and start a warm-up, or enter get your materials and wait for instructions you have to have some type of routine so that the kids know what to do when they come into your room. As well as exit, do they have to complete an exit ticket, do they just leave when the bell ring, there must be some type of routine or there will be chaos.
- Be consistent! We all know that sometimes there are some things that happened that you can’t foresee like fire drills, assemblies, or teachers being absent but always try to at least be as consistent as possible to keep you and your student’s sanity.
- Decide what it is a No in your class. There are some rules you will have that are nonnegotiable. Kids want to negotiate and there may be a things that can be negotiated based on their behavior but there are some things that you should just not do or allow and they should be aware of what that is, for me it is no name calling. I never want any student to feel uncomfortable in my class that is nonnegotiable for me. My students know that they will either lose recess or have to call their parents “I consider it bullying”
- Build relationships with students talk to them and be open to letting them talk to you. Get to know your students, when you have these relationships they are more apt to follow your rules and procedures. Most times your students will ensure that your class is running smoothly because they like you and want to please you. Plus they know what your expectations are.
- Let students know consequences of rule breaking don’t let it be a surprise. Always ensure they are aware of the consequences of their actions. That is not to say you cannot make adjustments to what the consequences are but you always want to stay consistent with students
- Reward positive behavior sometimes as teachers we tend to overlook our students who are really trying to follow the rules and who are trying to be good students and citizens. They are often overlooked especially when you have a lot of behavior problems. But we cannot forget the all the positives. Many times when our students that struggle with behavior, see that a student is getting rewards for being good, a lot of times that helps to change their behavior I like Class Dojo to help me keep track and if they are good I even let my trustworthy students be my dojo monitor. Be careful they have to be trustworthy or all of their friends will have a lot of points
- Practice your rules and procedures if you want your students to learn the rules basically practice, practice, practice. Practice makes perfect, don’t assume just because you’re in the third six weeks that your students will know or remember the rules unfortunately they are kids and we have to keep reminding them of the rules, don’t get upset (I mean all the every time) because they will forget and it is just a part of teaching. They will have it by the end of the year I promise…lol!
What are some of the rules that you use in your class or do you have any classroom management tips that you feel helps your class run smoothly, please send a comment and share out, I would love to hear what everybody else does.
Upper Elementary Antics 