Managing Behaviour for Learning
Transcript: Rules and routines
Right. I am Mr. Foster. I presume you are form 1 Alpha.
Yes, sir.
As this is our first meeting, I will outline a few basic and simple rules which you will remember, observance of which
will guarantee that we get on like a house on fire, right?
Yes.
Yes what?
Yes, sir.
That’s better. Right! Having said that, I would now like to remind you that adequate, proper and decent strip will be
worn at all times. That means vest, shorts, footwear. With regards to footwear it must be worn. Bare feet will not be
tolerated. This means that gym shoes, gym shoes will be worn at all times. Black soled shoes are not, repeat, not
allowed inside the gymnasium. Neither, I will point out, are football boots, spiked running shoes or hob-nail boots,
beetle crushers or desert wellies. Is that clear?
Yes, sir.
Splendid! Three basic rules. One. Be ready when I arrive, two, only do what you are told to do inside the gymnasium
and three – next boy – number three – which is –
Vest, shorts and pumps sir.
Yes. More correctly, clean vest, shorts and shoes. Don’t let it happen again.
Yes, sir – I mean, no, sir.
Well, if it isn’t the incredible flying Jenkins, our intrepid circus performer. And what’s this supposed to be?
My kit sir, it’s clean, sir.
Perhaps it is Jenkins, but you look more like a discarded fish and chip paper than a potential athlete. Slovenly
appearance is the result of a slovenly character, gentlemen. My gymnasium was never intended to be – is not – never
will be a sanctuary for slovenly characters, rat bags or apprentice scarecrows.
Is that clear, Jenkins?
Yes, sir.
Splendid. Right, first boy – lead out.
That was Mr. Foster from Grange Hill, 1978, with his version of establishing rules and routines in his classroom. And
whilst we may not agree with his language or his approach or his attitude, the principle remains that teaching children the
specific routines and rules that you expect, the specific behaviours that you want to see in your classroom is an essential
part, and essential foundation for the management of behaviour.
Now many schools have rules, school rules, overarching principles linked to the values of the school which reflect higher
ideals. So you might have rules in your school which say, “Treat each other with courtesy,” or “Do your best,” or “Be
polite.”
Now we could certainly sign up to those values, those aims. But in order to use them in the classroom to manage
behaviour we need to have them much more defined. They need to relate to the specific behaviours that you wish to see
from your class. Telling Daniel, who’s just ripped up Laura’s book that he ought to treat other people with courtesy,
doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem.
This audio seminar will look at Rules and Routines. It will look at establishing specific rules in your classroom which
relate to the behaviours which you wish to observe. It will look at establishing rules that are overt, defined, and fair to
the children. It will look at establishing routines for activities so that once the children know the routine and understand
it the management of behaviour can become hidden behind the learning rituals in the classroom. Those teachers that you
observe who are very strong in their management of behaviour will have established routines that become almost
ritualized.
One of the basic tenets of behaviour management is that we don’t assume that children know how to behave. Teachers
in secondary school very often assume that the year seven pupils that come into school already know how to behave.
They’ve been in school for many years. They’ve been with different teachers. They have experienced the classroom and
they should know exactly how teachers want them to behave.
The problem with that is that all of us are different and we all have slightly different expectations, slightly different rules
and slightly different routines. To assume that children know how to behave is to assume that they already know your
precise rules and the precise actions that you want them to take in the activities in your classroom. And there is a danger
there. The danger is that what’s in your head, the expectations that you’ve got, the rules that you’ve got running around
your head, the routines that you’ve already got established for yourself, are not precisely communicated to the child.
We need to make absolutely sure that the children in our class know those expectations. They know the rules. They’re
on the wall on display clearly. They’re not in our heads, they’re actually overt, on display, referred to constantly
throughout the lesson, through the school day. Once we’re absolutely sure that the child knows the rules, knows the
routines, then we can be sure that their choices are informed choices. We can be sure that when they choose to behave
inappropriately they’ve done that deliberately and therefore deserve a sanction or a consequence.
And when they behave appropriately that they have behaved according to the rules that they know operate and therefore
they deserve acknowledgement and positive reinforcement, praise and reward.
If you think about really good practice with early years teachers, so teachers who are working with children four, five,
six years old, their teaching is very much based in routines, in the rituals of learning. In fact, a lot of teachers of that age
group tend to teach them social skills, the social manners, how to interact with other children, right down to really basic
routines. How to walk in the classroom, how to leave the classroom, how to tidy up after painting. How to put your
hand up to answer a question, or how to sit on the carpet and listen to a story cross-legged.
Teachers of that age group understand that if they don’t teach using routines and explicit rules and rituals, then their life
is far more complicated. What we get with older children is this assumption that they know how to behave, that they
understand the routines and the rituals and the rules immediately and you have conversations which begin admonishing a
child for inappropriate behaviour and the child doesn’t actually realise that that behaviour was inappropriate.
So, year seven class, new to a secondary school, they’re having to deal with six, seven teachers in class every day and
lots of other people outside of the class and around the site as well, all of whom have slightly different expectations of
them. So the child that comes in to the Science lesson walks straight in the door, puts their bag under the desk, all the
equipment out and suddenly is in trouble with the Science teacher because the expectation in the Science lesson is that
you wait outside until you’re asked to come in, you put your bags and coats at the side and not near the desks and that the
rules are slightly different to the class that they’ve just come from which may have been Math where different routines
will have been in place.
Now, we want behaviour management to be consistent across the school, but that doesn’t mean that every classroom has
to be a mirror image of the other. What it means in terms of consistency is that each classroom has routines, has rules,
has routines that are absolutely explicit. In a lot of schools I’m working with, we’re working very heavily on routines.
Even (inaudible) basic routines. Secondary school children walking into a classroom. So how do you enter into a
Science lesson? How do you walk into a PE lesson? What are the expectations when you walk into a Drama lesson? Or
a History lesson?
They’re all slightly different. And the secondary school teachers that I’ve been working with, we’ve been working a lot
with explicitly displaying those routines so that they’re in appropriate places. So the routine for how to enter the
classroom is on the door. Large. So everybody knows that that is the way you enter into the Science room.
And similarly, write down the basic routines for leaving the classroom. On the back of the door, you’ve got the routine
for leaving the classroom. There might be a routine for arriving late. There might be a routine for group work. A
routine for individual work. And the classrooms are run on the basis that the children don’t know how to behave. That
we are going to teach them exactly how we want them to behave, we’re going to describe the precise behaviours that we
want to see and then leave the decision down to them as to whether they choose to follow that rule, that routine, that
ritual and receive appropriate acknowledgement or whether they’re going to decide to ignore that and then receive their
consequences.
So our first step in establishing rules, let’s deal with rules first to fall – is to decide on the precise behaviours that you
expect from your students. So draw up a list of four or five rules. Now lots of teachers say to me, oh, well, we can
negotiate that with the children, and that should be the first thing that we do. If you are an experienced teacher and you
know your classes extremely well, then I think that’s something that you might consider doing if you thought it was
going to be productive. If you are working as a new teacher in the school, or you’re working with new children or
you’re working with children that are not quite as settled as you would like them, you decide on those rules. After all,
you are the teacher, you are in charge of the class, and you do get to decide what the rules are. Decide on those rules,
explain them to the children so they know exactly why you’ve got those rules and model what you are going to do in
different circumstances. So what you will do, if somebody decides to break Rule No. 3, what you will do if somebody is
clearly following Rule No. 5 really well.
Once you’ve got your rules, look at the language in which they are phrased. What we’re looking for here is language
that is positive. So, rules that are peppered with “don’t don’t don’t don’t” are not going to be phrased positively.
They’re actually phrased negatively and they may encourage a more negative response. So phrase your rules in a
positive way where you can. I understand that there are times where if you don’t – if chewing is a big issues in your
classroom, then it’s very difficult to have a rule which says, “Please keep your mouth free.” I mean, that would just be
awkward. So you might have to use “Don’t chew,” or “Please put your chewing gum in the bin when you walk in.”
For the other rules, you need to decide very clearly about the precise behaviour that you want. So you identify the
behaviours that you want to see rather than those which you don’t want. An example of a very simple structure for five
classroom rules might be:
No. 1: Follow instructions first time given. That is a really important catchall as to your first rule and I suggest that that,
or a variance of that, should be somewhere near if not at the top of your classroom rules. It means that when you give an
instruction, when you refer to a specific routine or when you remind the children of a particular ritual, that is your first
instruction. If you ask for something to be done in your classroom and it’s not done the first time, then that’s something
that you need to address with the students, because you don’t want to be spending your whole time repeating instructions
or repeatedly asking children to do something.
No. 2: When someone is speaking, listen. Really clear, simple. I as a teacher am speaking, the rest of the children
listening. If another person in the class has responded to a question or is speaking to the group, everyone else should be
listening, too.
No. 3: Stay on task.
No. 4: Keep your hands and feet to yourself.
No. 5: Speak politely to everyone.
That is just an example of five rules that I’m comfortable with using with children I’m working with. You can see that
they’re phrased positively. They identify specific behaviours that I want to see and I can observe seeing, and they don’t
focus on the negative, because that’s something we don’t want.
Now beyond your classroom rules, there are, of course, many, many different activities, some of which are formal
learning activities and some of which are organisational activities and I’m going to split them into two sections. So we’ll
deal with the organisation, the classroom organisation and the informal activities first of all.
We need to teach the children the precise rituals for this classroom organisation. So, how they come in the classroom,
how they tidy up, how they respond to a question, how they leave for break, how they get their planners out on their
desks and their equipment, what they do to organise themselves for learning.
Have a think about some of those really basic routines. Let’s deal with the most basic of all, which is entering the
classroom. You will have specific things that you want the children to do. You may even have things that really annoy
you, behaviours that irritate you at the moment that you want to address. So here’s a way of immediately addressing that
and we start with entering the classroom because that sets the tone for the rest of the lesson.
Now your routine as a teacher for entering the classroom might be quite specific. It might be that you meet them at the
door, that you greet everyone as they walk in, that you get a little bit of eye contact to make sure that you can sense what
kind of mood the group is in or check on individuals that are causing you concern.
The children’s ritual for entering the classroom needs to be stepped. So what is the first thing that you want them to do.
Do you want them do line up outside? Do you want to walk straight in? Do you want them to put a line there about
greeting the teacher as they walk through the door? Is it important that they then take their coats off and hang them up?
Do you want equipment out? What equipment is that, specifically? Do you want the planners out on the desks? Do you
want them sitting according to a seating plan? Do you want them to put away mp3 players, mobile phones? You ought
to make that overt and explicit instructions.
So what is the ritual that the children should be following? A really good exercise for you, the teacher, is to write down
that ritual in four or five steps and post it on the door of the classroom. So when you begin to teach the children that
ritual, it’s there in front of them.
You may need to keep that display up for a few weeks until they absolutely know the routine. Just by displaying that
ritual on the door, you are giving a clear signal, not only to the children that come into your class every day, but to the
rest of the members of the staff around, your colleagues in your department or in your area, to visitors to your classroom
and it is absolutely clear that you are prepared to teach your children how to behave and teach them exactly how you
want them to behave for you.
Of course, simply posting up a ritual will not solve your problems with managing behaviour. You need to teach that
positively, which means that you establish the ritual, you post it up on the door, you talk the children through it, what the
ritual – what the steps in the ritual are, how they should behave, and then you start catching the children doing the right
thing immediately. “Fantastic! You’ve lined up, you’re standing really quietly, you’re ready to go. I can see you’ve got
your coat in your hand all ready to hang it up and you’re equipment out of your bags. Fantastic!”
As the children enter the classroom, again, you’re acknowledging those children who are following the routine and
clocking those who aren’t so that you can have a quiet word with them later. But certainly in the stages of new rituals,
new routines, you need to be using lots of positive reinforcement, encouragement, to make sure that they not only
understand the routine, but they are certain that there will be a positive benefit in following it.
So when you’ve decided on your routine for entering the classroom, post it up, talk it to the children using positive
reinforcement, acknowledge them with praise. Once they begin to understand that, then you can introduce another
routine. Now, I’m not suggesting that we start introducing ten, fifteen new routines and new rules at the same time.
Introduce a couple of new routines, teach them to death until the children are saying, “All right – okay – I know the
routine. I know what to do.” Then you can be absolutely sure that the children in your room know how you want them
to behave.
You can then step up the expectation. You might need to adjust the routine to raise the expectation slightly, or you may
want to start introducing more routines. And once the children get used to the fact that with each activity they do there is
a specific routine, a specific set of expectations, then they get used to looking for those. So, instead of a routine for
classroom organisation or for informal activities, we start to have routines for formal learning activities. So, what are the
expectations, what do you want children to do when they are working independently? What precise behaviours do you
want to see from your children when they are doing a group discussion, or when they’re working in pairs, feeding back
to each other, using maybe a think-pair-share structure?
You will certainly know what they ought to be, they will certainly already be in your head. To have them on display in
the classroom is a step up from that.
Now a lot of times when I work with teachers we have a really good training day on routines, and they’re absolutely
convinced, right, routines, great foundation for my management of behaviour. They go away, they decide precisely their
routines, so they maybe have entering the classroom, leaving the classroom, group discussions, independent work,
whatever it might be that’s specific to their classroom.
I come back and see them a month later and the routines are there, but they’re on small pieces of A4 and they’re kind of
hidden behind the teacher’s desk. They’ve been introduced really enthusiastically, but then the display has been hidden
and the routines really aren’t obviously in operation.
If you are going to decide on a new set of rules, or introduce rules to you classroom, if you’re going to introduce rituals
and routines then get them up large on A3 paper. You might even want the children to help design, you might even have
an area or couple of areas on the classroom, let’s say on two walls, where you have got the different routines that are
operating at that time. And those will be changed perhaps, you know, every two weeks, every month. You’ll have new
routines up there or you’ll adjust the routines and the rituals and the rules that you’ve already got.
With younger children, you certainly may want to have some words up on the walls, but consider using words with
pictures, words with symbols, or perhaps just signs that have symbols on them so that even the younger children can
understand what the stepped routine is for the activities that they are doing. And particularly with the younger children
you want to get them involved in understanding exactly what that picture meant and running them through that.
In fact, with all of the routines that you are using currently you need to be reminding all of the children about a routine
before they start the activity, so, “We’re going to start going some group work. Let’s just remind ourselves what the
specific routine is for doing group work. It’s up on the wall. Great. Have a look at the routine and then I’m going to ask
you to close your eyes and repeat it back to me.”
With younger children you might actually get them chanting that back to you so that you’re absolutely sure that right at
the beginning of the activity, everybody knows how to behave. That is not going to solve all of your problems with
managing behaviour, but it will allow some of those children who just dive into activities, not really thinking twice about
how they ought to be behaving. It just allows them to check themselves so that they are absolutely clear what you
expect.
For children that are going from teacher to teacher, and it’s not just in secondary school – there are many primary
schools that have classes moving as well. For those children that are having to move every forty-five minutes to another
teacher with different expectations, that reminder before the activity starts is absolutely vital.
It’s worth considering also as well as using words, as well as using symbols, how else you can embed the rituals the
routines into your classroom. So, with younger children you’re using song, rhyme, repetition, call and response. Are
you using chants? There are lots of way that you can do this verbally, actively, as well, apart from just sticking signs up
on the wall. And I think that if you attack it in two or three different ways, you have the best chance of making sure that
all of those children understand your expectations.
It’s worth considering those routines which are informal, to do with classroom organisation and those routines that are to
do with learning activities. It’s very important to consider those routines which you need as a teacher. So the routines
that are absolutely vital to the smooth running of your class.
The first and most important of those routines, and one which you should establish for children from the very beginning
is a routine for listening to the teacher. So a routine for everyone to be quiet, to put down their work, to finish their
conversations and be listening to the teacher who’s leading the lesson. Some people use hands up; that relies a little bit
too much on waiting for the children to decide to see you and put their hand up. Some people use claps or a whistle or a
signal or a series of taps. I prefer to use a countdown because it leaves me on control of it. So I’ll count down for five,
I’ll give the specific instructions that I want the children to follow. I’ll use positive reinforcement and acknowledgment
to ensure that I am modeling the appropriate routine to the rest of the class.
“Five. Fantastic, Joshua, you’ve got your eyes on me, you’re ready to listen and I’ve only just started the countdown.
Great. Thank you. Four. This table over here, you need to just clear away that work in the middle because I’m counting
down. I need your attention. Three. James, that’s great. You’ve come and sat down, turned your body to me, finished
your conversation. Fantastic. Two. This table over here, you’re going to be the first to be ready. I’m really pleased
with you. That’s a class merit for that table. One. We’re nearly all there. Okay, Damion, nearly half, just grab that seat,
eyes on me – fantastic! Zero.”
So with some flexibility, I remain in control of the time that it takes and the speed at which I would like to have the
class’ attention. I avoid asking for silence, I avoid demanding instance silence and stopping their conversations, and I
explain to the children I’m using countdown to give them a little bit of respect to allow them to finish their conversations
and be ready.
And then I have a platform, if I’m using the positive reinforcement and that praise and the reward, I have a platform then
to say to those children who have not finished their conversations and who have not got their eyes on me at the end, I
have good cause to give those children a warning or to apply an appropriate sanction according to the graduated
sanctions that I’ve got on display. So to me, that countdown is a key routine. It’s something that I would teach a new
class straight away.
Other key routines. And we’re all used to asking questions in class and having children put their hand up. For me, that’s
one way of the children responding to questions that you ask. I would much rather have a routine in my classroom that
required children to indicate more subtly when they have the answers to the question. The reason being that hands up
encourages children who are fast thinkers, children who are confident in speaking in front of the class, children who
want to have that reinforcement and want to have a go. It doesn’t encourage those children who are slightly slower
thinkers. It doesn’t encourage those children who need time to consider the answer. It rewards speed and confidence.
And actually, those children who are confident to speak up in front of the group, who are always ready with a quick
answer, are not necessarily the ones that you need to bring on.
So, my routine for answering questions would be if you’ve got the answer, look at me. If you’re still thinking, look up.
So that I can very subtly allow the children to indicate to me when they’ve got the answer. When Thomas has got the
answer, the child sitting three space along from him doesn’t know that he has the answer, so that other child doesn’t feel
the pressure of time. Also, I can be very careful about who I choose and I can give that some consideration without
almost being railroaded into choosing the child who put their hand up first.
The third really important routine for me, and I know that in primary school it’s not so much of an issue although it does
happen at the end of breaks and the end of lunch, is a routine for late arrivals.
In a secondary school, there are children who are constantly arriving late, and more often than not, they’ll just walk
straight into your classroom, cause a bit of a commotion, make a bit of noise, cause a kerfuffle as they sit down, because
there’s no set routine of how to arrive to a lesson late. So this is a really key routine that’s worth considering. It’s worth
sitting down and mapping out.
What do you want the children to do? Do you want them to knock on the door and wait outside until you’re ready to call
them in? Do you want them to slide in quietly, take their place and try and pick up from where the lesson has begun?
Do you want them to sign in so that you’ve got a record of those children who are arriving late and then you can identify
those ones who are consistently late? What is the routine for arriving late and where is it posted?
And the last key routine that I’d want to establish is a routine for leaving the classroom. Not just at the end of a lesson,
but for children who want to leave the classroom in the middle of a lesson, to go to the toilet, to go and see another
teacher, whatever it might be. There needs to be a very specific routine for that. So, do you want them to sign out? Do
you want to give them a corridor pass? Do you want them to put their name on a sheet at the door with a time so that
you know exactly when they left and when they returned? If may not be you that they ask to leave the room. It might be
one of the teaching assistants that gives that permission. But they need to have that routine very, very clearly mapped
out.
If you are working with a new group of children or you’ve got children that have moved up, so let’s say, you know it’s
September and you’ve got a class that’s moved up to you, it’s worth investigating some successful rules and routines that
have operated in other classrooms with their previous teachers and to build on these. There’s no need to reinvent the
wheel. If the children have already been using specific routines for the last year, then follow those, adapt them for your
needs, make minor changes; it is much better to do that than to completely revolutionise the routines and the rules and try
and introduce a whole new set. If you can build on what’s gone on before, you can make a link with their previous
learning and the previous teacher, then that can be a very good way to quickly hit the ground running with a new group.
One of the key benefits for having rules, routines and rituals in your classroom is that on those days where you’re tired,
on those days where you’re feeling frustrated, where you’re feeling emotionally unpredictable and inconsistent, you can
fall back on your routines. Instead of having to invent new instructions, instead of having to constantly deal with
inappropriate behaviour, you can refer the children back to the routines. And if you’ve got them posted on the walls, you
can do that in a number of ways. It might be that you draw a child away from the group, away from where they’re
sitting, and talk to them next to where the routine is displayed on your wall. It might be that you’re able to just tap that
routine, very subtly, get eye contact with the child who’s behaving inappropriately to remind them that there is a routine
that operates.
You want to be as consistent as possible even when you’re feeling like throwing your hands up in the air. Having your
routines established, having children moving through the activities referring, looking at the walls, looking at the routines,
talking to other children reminding them about it, starts to give the class a responsibility for managing their behaviour
and takes some of the responsibility away from you, leaving you more time to deal with what you want to do which is to
deal with the learning.
There are clear benefits for the children in having routines. Children love routines. They really like to know what’s
going to happen in your classroom. The reason being is that they know that classrooms which are predictable are safe,
secure and easier places to learn. They also love routines because they can take a lot of responsibility for managing their
own behaviour, for managing their own learning upon themselves. If they know that there is a clear routine that they
have to work through when they’re doing a group discussion or a group activity, they can start taking responsibility for
that, being a little bit more autonomous in their learning and instead of referring back to you for what to do next or what
they ought to be doing, they can refer to the displays on the classroom wall, they can ask other children, they start to
become a lot more responsible for running their own group, for managing their own work.
Just to end with, I want to highlight this idea about routines with an example from my own practice. Before I even
started training to be a teacher, I worked as a teaching assistant in a school for a year. And would occasionally have
responsibility for the group under the supervision of the class teacher. And I was working mainly with older children, so
year five, year six children, and some of the children in the secondary school as well.
And I heard in a staff room about the younger children, about the foundation groups and very often in conversations with
the PE teachers, they would joke about something called the wall of death. And I was always curious as to what the wall
of death was. And so curious in fact that I mentioned to one of them one day and they said, well, why don’t you come
and lead one of the PE lessons for the foundation class. Although I had very little experience at working with that age
group, I did have a great deal of experience with leading groups in PE and sports and so I agreed to come and teach them
a PE lesson. And we have a plan mapped out for doing crocodiles and seas and mats and jumps and all sorts of things.
So, obstacle courses with this foundation group.
I got them lined up outside the classroom, it was all a bit new, but I had a good plan. I didn’t really think it was going to
be a problem, after all, you know they were five year old children, I was a lot older, a lot bigger and I was going out to
control this class – no problem at all. And I was really only thinking about the content of what I was going to deliver.
I got them lined up outside the door, and I went to go and sit in the middle of the room, assuming that they would come
and sit in a big circle around me, which is how I’d worked with other groups in the past. As they walked in, they started
off at a walk and then they started running. And I had twenty-five five year olds steaming around the outside of this big
hall just running round and round and round and round. Going crazy. I think it must have been, you know, a rainy day.
They hadn’t had much time out of the classroom and this was their opportunity to be in this huge space and they were
just running and running and running.
And there was me standing in the middle of the room expecting them to come and sit round the outside of me. So,
obviously, I started to try and call for their attention. I had my whistle on me so I thought, well, what I’ll do then is I’ll
whistle and they’ll all stop and we can start the lesson. So I whistled. And actually, by whistling, they started running
faster and faster and faster.
I looked over to the PE teacher who was sitting in the corner laughing his socks off at me and I looked over just in
despair. I didn’t know how to stop them. Raising my voice didn’t do any good. Using the whistle seemed to make
things much worse, and I suddenly realized that this was the wall of death, going round and round and round the hall.
I looked at him, almost to say, you know, “Please, help me out here. I don’t know what to do.” He stood up, he shouted,
“FREEZE!” and every single child stopped. On the spot. Absolutely dead. Silent. Looking at him, waiting for the next
instruction. And that was their routine. That was the routine that they’d learned, that they had established from early on.
They knew as soon as they heard the word “FREEZE” that was their cue to stop. Of course, I didn’t know that. I didn’t
have that routine with them. And so, actually I was completely disempowered. And looking back on it, that, for me, was
the start of understanding how routines can be used to teach specific behaviour and how individual teachers have those
personalised routines with their groups and with individuals in their care and that that’s a really strong foundation for
building more advanced behaviour management strategies on top of them.
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