New to teaching? How to manage your classroom

New to teaching? How to manage your classroom 

The key to a well-run classroom is having a positive, respectful relationship with your students starting on the first day of the school year. A trusting classroom with mutual respect is a thriving classroom complete with active, engaging learning opportunities which can lead to academic success.

Developing that strong relationship with your students can be challenging and time-consuming, and some teachers may be naturally better at it than others. However, most teachers can overcome a deficiency in this area by implementing a few simple management techniques in their classroom on a daily basis. Here are just a few of them:

Build relationships 

This is the most effective classroom management technique. When students trust you, they make an effort to follow the rules. Your class should feel more like a family. Get to know your students on a more personal level and build rapport with them based on trust, mutual support and understanding. Be genuine and show compassion when needed. This is an ongoing growth area, so it may be worth analysing your results on a regular basis and learning from any mistakes to get better.

Provide Structure

Most students respond positively to having a structure in their classroom. It makes them feel safe and leads to increased learning. Each day should be filled with engaging learning activities with minimal downtime. Teachers who don’t know how to provide structure are more likely to struggle with completing tasks and gaining the respect of their students. It's essential that you set the tone early by establishing clear expectations and practising class procedures. 

Use Humour

Don’t be afraid to use humour in your classroom. Students need to laugh, and you can have fun while still maintaining strong classroom management. Making jokes, playing innocent pranks or using light-hearted sarcasm in the classroom will help to build relationships with your students. You can also use humour when preparing an engaging lesson plan by sharing some fun videos, preparing team activities or sharing funny stories from your life. Humour can also break the ice and build classroom solidarity.

Celebrate the Good Things

Show students that you value the work they put into learning. Pay attention to what students do and let them share their success stories with their class. Students who know their work will be celebrated instead of their grades will pay more attention and stay focused.

We often spend too much time telling students (and ourselves!) what went wrong. It takes time and practice to notice the good things that are going well. Do it anyway. You don’t always need to be problem-solving. Instead, you can be building on the positives, which will then push out the negatives. For example, if you see students working together to solve a problem, notice it out loud. “Nice teamwork, you two. Can you tell us why you decided to work on this together instead of on your own?”. This way you’ll hear their thinking, and other students will get to learn that it’s ok (and encouraged) to think outside the box.

Attend Student Events

Students love seeing their teacher at their sporting events, speech and debate competitions, drama productions and other events. Make sure you attend some of them to show support and appreciation for their hard work. This will also give you something to talk about in the classroom. Believe it or not - you can create an instant bond by showing respect for your students' extracurricular activities.

Make a Plan for Behavioural Issues

Make a plan for what will happen if a student breaks a classroom rule. Try to come up with specific things that might happen and what you will do. In the moment, it may be tough to come up with a suitable punishment. Enforce the consequence without any emotion. “You did this, and the consequence is this.” This helps students see that the behaviour is unacceptable, but the pupil is still valuable.

Make Positive Phone Calls to Parents or Guardians

Many teachers fall into the trap of calling home only to report an issue. Whilst these calls are necessary, calls for celebration are even more important to encourage good behaviour. Every parent wants to hear something positive about their child, and this reinforcement always makes its way back to the student. Take time in your busy schedule to make one positive call to a different student’s home every week. This means so much to parents and students and usually translates to positive classroom behaviour.

As the school year progresses, it’s easy to end up focused on a to-do list. Nevertheless, it’s equally important to focus on building relationships with students and their parents/guardians. Utilise the first few minutes of your class to continue to learn about students, and if you ever struggle, do not hesitate to ask your fellow teachers or your principal for help.

If you want to find out more about classroom management techniques, here are few more articles worth reading:

We are teachers - 11 Classroom Management Techniques That Really Work

WGU - 6 Easy Ways To Build Relationships With Your Students

Edutopia - Relationship Building from Day 1

Teach Thought - 12 Strategies To Connect With Students