Knowing How To Start Lessons Well Is One Of The Most Useful Classroom Management Strategies

The problem is that, as is often the case with classroom management strategies, teachers have to choose from a range of alternative actions, some of which may be appeal as knee jerk reactions, especially when under stress, but which are ultimately unsuccessful.

A typical scenario

You arrive at the classroom and the students are noisy and rowdy: what do you do?

a. Walk into the room and try to get the students to be quiet by loudly telling them to 'shush' and exhorting them to get settled.

b. Identify the loudest group of students and charge towards them and forcefully tell them to sit down and shut up

c. Raise your hand and wait for the class to reciprocate and raise their hands in turn and then fall silent and settle down: when the students have become silent you apologise for being late.

d. Position yourself at the front of the class, arms folded or hands in pockets, waiting for the students to become silent.

e. Go the whiteboard and write out the lesson objectives while you wait for the class to become silent.

So what's the best way to start lessons well?

The best one is likely to be c Raise your hand and wait for the class to reciprocate and raise their hands in turn and then fall silent and settle down: when the students have become silent you apologise for being late.

This is one of a number of ways you can gain a class's attention. But first of all you would need to have established this rule with your class. They need to know that when you give the pre-arranged signal - it doesn't have to be raised hand, it could be just that you stand in a certain spot or that you count down from 10 to 1 - they must become completely silent to show they are ready to pay attention and to listen to your instructions.

Like all successful classroom management strategies you need first of all to model the technique with your students and then practise it relentlessly until it becomes second nature.

And while on the subject of modelling, when you apologise to your students for being late you're showing them the kind of behavior you expect them to demonstrate, not just to you the teacher, but also to fellow students.

Of course once your routine for starting lessons well is fully established you will need to rely on it less and can focus on other techniques that help you start lessons well.

A good idea is to have the lesson objectives written up at the start so students start to connect ith the learning immediately.

A short starter activity also helps you to start lessons well because it gives your students some vital 'take up time' to get themselves fully settled after the initial signal for silence.

If you get all of things right you'll be able to start lessons well just about every time. By apologising, you are modelling the behaviour that all members of the group should expect from one another.


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