In the first few weeks of the school year, establishing your classroom norms (aligned to your school-wide values) and routines (how you want the norms/values to be demonstrated) is an essential focus. It is critical that you have thought very carefully about what you expect from your students and have allocated time to explicitly teach and practice those norms and routines.

Tom Bennett explains how our classroom routines are not just designed to set up a predictable and well-run classroom, they are also about keeping our students happy and safe by upholding our behavioural expectations and our school values while also maximising our students’ learning time.

An example of this is (in my Year 7/8 classroom) when a fellow student or an adult is speaking to the class or a group we turn to face the speaker and look at them while they are speaking. We do this because we value Respect (it is one of our school-wide values/norms) – looking at someone when they are speaking is a sign of respect.

Start small and be intentional
When I explicitly teach and practice instructional routines to my students, I start with a small number, and think very carefully about which routines I will use most often (daily) and across different subject areas.

Here is a list of some routines which I explicitly teach within the first few weeks:

• Entering and exiting the classroom (morning/breaks/lunchtime)
• What students do straight after break and lunchtimes
• How to answer roll call
• Signals for gaining students’ attention
• Setting up exercise books (date/underlining/spacings/pen or pencil)
• Pair-Share and reporting back
• Mini whiteboards routines
• Reading aloud as a whole class (choral reading)
• Fluency pair routines
• End of the day tasks (packing up/cleaning routines)
• Leaving at the end of the day – how students leave on the final bell

Demonstrate
Demonstrate how you want a routine executed; you can also use student role play and give images as prompts. Then have lots of run throughs with very specific feedback. Do not expect only to explain a routine to your students; it is not enough. They need to see it and you may need to break it down into small steps.

Provide support, then move to independence
At the beginning of learning a new routine your students will need a lot of prompting, reminding and potentially additional demonstrations until the routine begins to happen automatically or with a brief starting signal.

Start slowly – practice till automaticity is achieved
In the beginning, mastering routines can be very slow. It will take some time and practice with feedback until your routines become automatic. Don’t be discouraged; remain consistent. As time progresses you will find that your students will ‘get’ new routines more quickly.

Reinforcement
Praise and reinforce the use of the routines you have established. Free flowing reinforcement can be verbal, rewards or house points until you have established fluency.

My Top 3 Routines for Literacy Instruction

These are the top 3 routines I teach my students and use daily in my literacy instruction. They are by no means the only instructional routines I teach, but they are ones which have the most impact on my lessons and I use them across a range of curriculum areas.

1. Mini Whiteboards
The use of mini whiteboards is an essential part of my whole class teaching. They are a simple and effective tool which can allow students to quickly record and share their thinking, providing instant formative assessment and the teacher can provide immediate responsive feedback.

To use them effectively each child needs their own whiteboard and whiteboard marker and their use should be embedded into daily practice. They can be used during whole class reading, spelling/phonics or maths lessons. There are numerous situations where they can be applied. Explicitly teach your pupils how you want them to manipulate their equipment.