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Session 1. Routines and Expectations: Make the Rules Visible
Objective. Write three to five positive expectations and break two daily routines into short steps that you can teach, practise and praise.
Every lesson has moments that repeat: coming in, taking out notebooks, being quiet when you speak, moving into pairs. If these moments are slow or noisy, you lose minutes and patience in every lesson of the year. If they are routines that pupils know, they cost almost nothing. This session shows how to choose a few routines, teach them as carefully as a new topic, and keep them alive, so that your voice is saved for teaching.
Key ideas
Why routines come first
- In a class of 30 to 40 and a 45-minute lesson, every minute lost to shuffling notebooks or waiting for quiet is a minute taken from learning (see 5.2 for the time budget).
- A routine is a short way of doing a regular task that pupils learn until they do it without being told.
- Predictable routines also give pupils a feeling of safety, and they take pressure off the teacher's voice (see 5.1 for how attention and memory work).
Three to five positive expectations
- Choose a few expectations, not a long list. Three to five can be remembered by a Grade 1 pupil and a Grade 9 pupil alike.
- State each as an action you can see or hear: 'Listen when someone speaks' instead of 'Don't be rude'.
- Draw them out of the pupils too: ask 'What helps us learn well together?' and write their words. Rules the class helped make are easier to follow, and they fit the respect for elders and teachers that families already teach.
Teach a routine like a mini-lesson
- Say what it is and why it helps. Show it yourself, step by step, slowly. Let pupils practise it, then once more.
- Keep each routine to about four steps. Walking in, taking out the notebook and sitting is one routine; do not teach ten routines on day one.
- Name what went well in specific words: 'Row 3 took out notebooks in 20 seconds without noise.'
Keep routines alive
- Practise for the first week, then check weekly. A routine that slips is usually a routine that was taught once.
- Re-teach after a break: the end of the Navruz holiday, winter break or a long absence is a good moment to rehearse again.
- Use one attention signal that does not depend on shouting, such as a raised hand, a small bell or a clap pattern, and practise it as a routine too.
Teaching a routine
Telling is not teaching
A teacher who says 'Come in quietly' once in September has given a wish, not a lesson. A routine has to be seen and tried. Show the whole sequence at the pace you want, perhaps in 30 seconds. Then ask the class to do it, and stop to praise the parts that were right: 'Everyone had their notebook open before sitting.' If it was messy, do it again. Two practices on day one usually save many reminders later.
Teach the reason as well as the steps. Pupils from Grade 3 upwards follow a routine better when they hear what it gives them: 'This way we start 3 minutes earlier and have time for the game at the end.' Keep your tone friendly. The aim is a habit, not fear.
Which routines first
You cannot teach everything in a week. Look at where your lessons lose the most time and begin there. For most teachers these are entering, getting everyone's attention, handing out and collecting materials, moving into groups, and asking for help. Teach one or two per day in the first week, then add. Write each routine in four steps or fewer, so that you can say it in one breath.
Expectations work the same way. Three to five short statements in positive words ('Listen when someone speaks') give you something to point to every day. Ask pupils to help word them. Keep the poster at the pupils' eye level and in the language of instruction; add the home language of pupils in a multilingual class if that helps them follow.
Examples from the classroom
Eight minutes to three
Scene. Dilnoza teaches Grade 5 in Samarkand. After break her 36 pupils took about eight minutes to settle. On Monday she stands at the door and shows the sequence: greet, walk to the seat, notebook and pen out, begin the task on the board. The class practises it twice in four minutes, and she praises row 2 by name. By Friday the settling takes about three minutes.
Insight. Showing and practising a routine, with specific praise, turns a repeated reminder into a habit.
The clap pattern
Scene. Malika teaches Grade 2 in a Fergana school. Raising her voice did not work in a room of 34 small children. She teaches a clap pattern: she claps twice, they clap twice and freeze with eyes on her. They practise ten times in a game, first with a fast pattern, then slow. In the following weeks, she needs the pattern only a few times per lesson.
Insight. A signal that is practised as a game becomes a routine, and it replaces the shouting.
After the Navruz holiday
Scene. Aziz teaches Grade 9 history in Tashkent. After the Navruz holiday his class is noisy and the handing out of worksheets takes six minutes. Instead of complaining, he re-teaches the routine for ten minutes in the first lesson: monitors for each row, a pile passed back, and a count to 20. The next day the handout takes under two minutes.
Insight. Routines fade after a break, so it is normal to teach them again.
Common pitfalls
- Announcing a rule once and expecting it to be remembered all year.
- Writing expectations as a list of 'don'ts' that tell pupils what to avoid but not what to do.
- Teaching ten routines in the first lesson so that none is learned well.
- Punishing the whole class when a routine fails, instead of practising it again.
Rewrite the Rules, Rehearse the Routine
- Alone (8 min): in the Activity Kit, rewrite the six rules on the 'Rules as often written' list as positive actions that pupils can see or hear. Keep to a few words each.
- In pairs (10 min): choose two daily routines from the routine list (for example entering the room, handing out notebooks) and write each as four short steps on the routine card.
- In groups of four (15 min): one person acts as teacher and teaches one routine in three minutes (say, show, practise); the other three act as pupils; one observer notes what was praised. Rotate so everyone teaches once if time allows.
- As a group (7 min): share one routine step that was missing from your first draft and one expectation you will teach in your own class this week.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which rule was hardest to rewrite as an action, and why?
- When you acted as the teacher, which part of the routine did the 'pupils' get wrong, and what did you do about it?
- Which routine would save you the most minutes in your own lesson tomorrow?
Reflect
- Which rule in your classroom is written as 'don't'? How could it be written as 'do'?
- Which part of the lesson loses the most time to disorder, and which routine could shorten it?
- When did you last practise a routine with the class, rather than only repeating the rule?
Try it tomorrow
- Pick the one routine that loses you the most minutes and write it in four steps on a card.
- Teach it in your next lesson by saying, showing and practising it twice, and praise one specific thing.
- Count how many minutes it takes before and after a week of practice, and note the difference.
Further reading and links
Tell pupils what to do, show them how, let them practise, and praise it; repeat until it is a habit.