Establishing and maintaining rules and routines

Remember that classroom rules and routines

• Must reflect and encourage rights and responsibilities
• Should encourage pupils to be responsible for their own behaviour
• Should be designed to teach the pupils how to behave
• Will take some time to establish
• Will be most effective when positive and simple
• Are inextricably linked to rewards and consequences

You will need to

• Be a good role model for your pupils
• Adopt a quiet, calm and positive manner and attitude
• Learn how to be assertive not aggressive
• Learn to say “No” confidently
• Learn how to set boundaries. Be fair and consistent in applying them
• Learn to keep your cool and not over react to low level and inappropriate behaviours
• Be firm but fair and give lots of praise (when it is deserved)
• Know your simple set of classroom rules, inside out
• Work positively with your agreed list of classroom rules
• Be clear in using and maintaining them and recognise when pupils are doing better than they have before
• Teach pupils how to use them appropriately in class
• Listen to pupils and use their feedback to make rules and routines work better
• Know the classroom consequences that can be applied if rules are not kept
• Show a confidence that you can influence and deal with different types of behaviour
• When unacceptable or inappropriate behaviour occurs focus on the behaviour and refer to the rules (and why you have them) do not denigrate the person

Things to do

• Click here for a set of Positive Language statements to use with your pupils (8.9)