Clear and consistent routines are a significant part of the whole story when it comes to classroom management and behaviour management. Obviously positive relationships and correct support structures are also important, but this post is about routines.
Pupils in my S1-3 classes have lessons that start as follows. Our lessons are all 50 minutes long.
Before they arrive (or just as they are arriving): I put their Numeracy Ninja books and yellow starter question jotters on their desks. They sit in rows of 5, so often this just involves placing two bundles at the end of each row. This takes me around 1 minute. Below I have taken the time to place them on the correct desks. I do this if I don’t have a class the period before.
First 2 minutes: Pupils arriving and getting “organised”. This is very specific. You are not organised until you have a pen/pencil and your maths jotter out of your bag and on your desk. You also need your outside jacket/jumper/hoodie off and your tie on. If you don’t have a jotter you need to ask for a piece of paper and if you don’t have something to write with you need to borrow a pencil straight away. I record a list of names of pupils on an A3 whiteboard on my desk just to remind me to get the pencil back. Sometimes this all takes longer than 2 minutes and sometimes less time depending on how far pupils have to travel. If you come in and waste time, and I catch you doing so, you are given a warning.
Next 5 minutes: Pupils are working on Numeracy Ninjas (see: https://www.numeracyninjas.org) in silence. The teachers in our department believe that this daily practice of basic numeracy skills is raising the standards of numeracy skills across all classes, so this is the second year we have run it with all BGE classes with the exception of the top sets in S3. I use the time they are completing these questions to go round and double check that everyone has their red maths jotter out, is in correct uniform and is coping with the questions, offering quick help if needed and focussing attention if pupils’ eyes wander and they begin to think about striking up a conversation. If you are stuck, move on to another question. Exactly when there are two minutes remaining on the PowerPoint timer I freeze the screen and start a 2 minute countdown on my Ikea kitchen timer. This allows me to quickly complete the electronic register and check if any urgent emails have been sent (this is probably not necessary, but only costs me seconds). I then spend the remaining time circulating the class. I now have the choice of surreptitiously switching off my Ikea timer (which I carry with me) if I need to extend the time because I might be talking with a pupil about a question or having a quiet word about their negative behaviour at the very beginning of the lesson. This works really well.
Next 2-3 minutes: I read out the answers to the Numeracy Ninjas questions. This used to take much longer, but we are beginning to get faster. The third set of 10 questions (Key Skills) usually take the longest, because I discuss the answers/solutions to most of the questions quickly. Any more involved questions might be gone over in full at the board if I have noticed that several pupils are stuck. If one of the Key Skills is relevant for today’s lesson, I will definitely go over it quickly. I don’t allow this to take very long at all and, like I say, this has taken time to get fast. Not all of the pupils will have attempted the Key Skills questions, so they used to think this meant it was okay for them to close their Numeracy Ninjas booklets and doodle on the cover while they wait. This has taken weeks to get right, but now, because I insist on it, all pupils wait and listen to the explanation/questioning of how these questions are answered and are expected to copy the methods for questions we discuss that they struggled with so that they can attempt the same question type when it next appears (probably next day).
Once we have finished going through the answers: Pupils record their score and belt colour then turn their booklet over and fill in the table that tracks their progress over the term. The Numeracy Ninja booklets are then passed to the end of the row for me to collect and we are then onto our yellow starter question jotters. I already have the starter questions (usually 3 or 4 short questions) prepared on the smart board on a separate PowerPoint, ready to go. These consist of questions that will serve two purposes: revise previously taught topics and prepare pupils for our upcoming lesson. For example, yesterday my S3 class (Third/Fourth Level) had to write out the first 8 multiples of 125. In the lesson, we were learning how to change a decimal number to a fraction. Changing 0.625 to a fraction was a doddle because they already had the multiples of 125 to hand, allowing them to focus on the new learning rather than on “what does 625 divide by that 1000 also divides by?”.
Next 5 minutes: Starter Questions. Pupils answer the starter questions quietly. The advantage to having starter question jotters is that the starters all stay together in one place so that if yesterday’s question 1 was “Change 0.34 to a fraction” and today’s is “Change 0.52 to a fraction” they should have written down how to do yesterday’s question when we went over it. This will help them today. I have only been using the yellow starter jotters since the start of this term, but am already finding pupils using them effectively in this way. While they are working on these questions I am circulating, looking at the work they are doing and checking for misconceptions to point out when we go over the questions. I’m learning who is stuck, how confident the class are as a whole and how much more input they need on the basics before we can start today’s lesson. While I am circulating I will also collect the Numeracy Ninja books. Why not get a pupil to collect them in? Well, I don’t want a pupil out of their seat and if they are collecting the books for me this means they won’t be answering the starter questions. They just don’t have time to collect the books, and I know I’m going to be circulating anyway. Some teachers will probably believe that it is the pupils’ job to distribute and collect resources. I disagree.
Next 3 minutes: I quickly go over the starter questions. I don’t need to get pupils to share their answers because I have already circulated and know what they can and can’t do. I go over the questions and pupils mark their own, making sure to write down a full solution if they have not answered the question yet. Once we have finished going over these, the yellow jotters are passed to the end of the row and put in a neat pile for me to collect when I next walk past.
All of this has taken 18-20 minutes out of our 50 minute lesson (on a good day). I then need to make a decision about how the rest of the lesson will pan out. I will begin the period with a plan such as “Today we are going to learn how to multiply fractions where one of the fractions is a mixed number”. Depending on how well they have coped with the starter question that asked them to change three and two fifths to a mixed number, I might get them to do a few more of these first. In a “normal” lesson, I will introduce the new learning by writing the title on the board. This is copied into their red maths jotter (these came out of their bags right at the beginning of the lesson). I’m a huge proponent of explicit instruction, so I will typically complete some example problems for pupils to think about (My Turn). I will question pupils on the bits they should already know about. They don’t copy these down because they are about to complete some quick problems in their jotter that are similar in format to my examples (Your Turn). While they are working on those (for usually around 3-4 minutes) I will circulate and keep pupils on task and also help those who are stuck. We go over these problems with much more questioning from me than in the starter questions. Pupils generally do fairly well because they have had help and because the questions are very similar to the examples. This success builds confidence and is usually followed by some independent work. When I know that some pupils need more challenging questions to complete, I will write some on the board. If other pupils are stuck I will bring those pupils together at the board and discuss a few more examples with them. This seems to be working very well. The main chunk of the lesson is usually different depending on the tasks I have set for the class.
End of the lesson: I have the time of the bell down to the second so I know when we need to stop and when we need to pack up. We don’t start packing up until there are between 1 and 2 minutes left. That’s way plenty of time. Those who have borrowed pencils need to return them to me. Everyone packs their jotter away and stands at their desks. I might take a moment to speak with the pupils who seemed less confident to begin with and see how they felt about their work. As a class, we might use 1-5 (show 1-5 fingers) to share how confident we are feeling about our lesson. 1 means “I don’t have a clue what we just did” and 5 means “If Mr Allan was off tomorrow I could probably teach the class”. They are beginning to realise that this is valuable feedback for me that helps me to decide how we progress as a class. I have made it a safe place for pupils to say they are stuck or are not confident. I find that almost all of my pupils take this seriously, and don’t just blag their way to a 5. They also know that I already have a pretty good idea how they are getting on. I might also use this time to put the next class’ Numeracy Ninja booklets and yellow starter jotters out, ready to start the whole routine again.
Routines have helped me to get behaviour back on track for two of my junior classes. It now feels like they are learning way more and I feel like I am teaching way more. We are managing to cover far more work and a wider range of problem types. Basic numeracy skills seem to be getting better. I mentioned the importance of relationships at the beginning of this post. Perhaps that should be the focus of another post…
Thanks for reading. “Please return your pencil if you borrowed one and wait at your desk until I ask you to leave.”
mrallanmaths 