Create routines that drive your classroom: 5 things to try
With the school year beginning, it was such a joy to welcome my class of foundation year students to our first day together. As these high-energy kids settled into the space my mind was awash with routines, routines, routines.
In his book, Running the Room, behaviour practitioner and consultant Tom Bennett emphasises that classroom climate, predictability, and clear boundaries are vital for ensuring we make it easy for children to behave, and hard to get it wrong.
After all, the work of the teacher is about managing and channelling the group
It’s not enough to know how best to teach the student in front of you as an individual. What really drives the instructional success of a school is the ability to channel the learning potential of a whole group and thus work to see the class, year level, and then whole school lift. Any practitioner could get kids achieving if they taught them one-on-one every day. The challenge, then, is how to harness instructional routines that maximise and utilise the time that kids have in front of teachers as a group.
[1] Norms linked to routines
Norms and routines will be a big focus in the Cognitorium (my classroom) over the first few weeks. Yesterday, we worked on the concept of respect, and illustrated this in and out of context, around the classroom and school. Today, we turned our attention to safety, and what this looks like.
Bennett is big on norms leading to routines in his new book, and this is a great, practical read because of this. A routine is not just designed to set up a predictable and well-run classroom. It’s ultimately about keeping kids happy and safe (by operationalising your class norms within repeated tasks or processes: this is how we do X, because we value Y), and about maximising learning time. Every slow transition adds up into wasted time, equating to hours every term, as discussed last week in my post on pairing.
Make sure students know what is expected of them
This includes your norms (or classroom rules), but also how you want things to work (routines),
[2] Prioritise a small number initially
Building upon the norms we have introduced so far, I have begun explaining and then practising classroom routines with my students. My attention will turn now to optimising the predictability and tempo of regular classroom situations so we can spend our energy on teaching and learning, and avoid constant “reminding”.
Here is a list of routines we hope to address first with my class of Foundation/Prep students (in order of priority):
Entering / exiting classroom
Attention signals (e.g. Eyes on me, 1,2,3)
Asking questions
Getting lunch / snack from bags efficiently and using eating time well
Asking to and using the toilet in timely way
Asking for general help/assistance
Pair shares and reporting back
Quick transitions from floor to mat (and vice versa)
Collecting or handing out materials
[3] tight, rehearsed routines
In another life I was a dance teacher of kids aged 3 and up. Rehearsing dance exercises and full routines is in the same ball park as teaching classroom routines. We used to spend the first 2-3 weeks practising first this, then this, then this, again and again. Once these routines were mastered (even by three year olds), our classes started to run more smoothly, and quietly (comprising much fewer reminders about basic things).
With these routines, my focus as dance teacher shifted to what was new, or the technique/learning of the session. Constantly explaining where to go, how to stand, when to wait, when to have your turn would eat up too much valuable instructional time, so these processes were best handled in a clear and transparent routine.
Routines need explanation, demonstration, rehearsal, and review
We want routines to become second nature to our students, so their working memory is preserved for the new learning we want them to gain.
So, I continue to draw upon my dance teaching days as I set up my class today.
Thinking about this together with my reflections form the literature, here are some major themes / steps you could consider when setting up your routines:
1. Show don’t tell
Use demonstration, student role play, images/video, run-throughs then reflections. Simply explaining with words is not enough.
2. Start supported, then increase independence
Initially, you will use a lot of prompting, think-alouds, and reminding. Fade this out as they get used to it, as each should happen automatically without your input (apart from a starting signal) by the end.
3. Start slow, then increase speed
Comparing my class to some of the year 4s and 5s this week, I was reminded how fast routines can get, and how slow they are in the beginning. Don’t expect magic straight away, but always make it the aim to eventually bring your routine up to full speed. It will take specific rehearsal and feedback to for each routine to achieve this.
4. Start context limited, then move to general use
You might only do pair shares on the mat initially, then eventually bring them to tables, and even then outdoors. Initially, it’s ok to limit the routine to a specific context. Always work to generalise from there, by varying place, time, order, and function of the routine.
5. Practice makes permanent
Here I reiterate the importance of rehearsal. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen (get the reference?), but only if you put in the rehearsal time.
[4] ideas from the science of learning brains trust
In preparing this post, I received some very generous tweets, gathering some wisdom of other practising teachers.
Karina Stocker, also from Victoria Australia, and member of THINK FORWARD EDUCATORS, drew upon the behavioural analysis literature for this gem.
James Dobson, Foundation teacher and learning specialist & chair of the TFE resources committee, Added the following.
Thank you both for your wise words, and I hope they set up more readers of this blog for success in the coming weeks!
[5] Not sure where to start? Read these too…
I had the pleasure of reading this over the Australian summer, and could not put it down. Bennett manages to write as if he’s speaking right to you, and his advice jumps off the page, read to try with your own class.
As introduced in my post last week, this book is a treasure trove of research and practice-based techniques, many of which focus on embedding effective and efficient routines that save you time and energy, and help your students to know what to do, and how to excel. Do read it!
Positive Teaching for Australian Primary Classrooms By Kevin Wheldall, Robyn Wheldall and Frank Merrett
This comes highly recommended, though I haven’t read it myself. Based on research from Merrett and Wheldall I look forward to getting into this when my copy arrives and looking for the crossover with my other go-to guides for behaviour.
Thanks for visiting, and see you next week!
ABOUT me
Dr Nathaniel Swain
I am a Teacher, Instructional Coach, Researcher and Writer. I am passionate about language, literacy and learning, and effective and engaging teaching for all students.
I teach a class of first year foundation students, in a space affectionately known as Dr Swain’s Cognitorium. I also work as Science of Learning Specialist in my school.