Your SCM First-Week-Of-School Checklist

Smart Classroom Management: Your SCM First Week Of School Checklist

You no doubt have a packed schedule the first week of school, but classroom management must take precedence.

Far and above everything else.

Because it’s the foundation upon which effective teaching is built. It also ensures your peace and protects your students’ right to learn and enjoy school.

So I created a checklist.

The goal is to get you started on the right classroom management foot and avoid waking up one morning six weeks from now wishing you could start all over.

First-Week Checklist

1. Greet every student with a hello and eye contact.

2. Teach your classroom management plan in exacting detail.

3. Remove all gray area by modeling what does and doesn’t constitute breaking your rules.

4. Promise to follow through 100% of the time.

5. Teach, model, and practice your core routines.

6. Teach, model, and practice how to transition.

7. Teach, model, and practice your “attention” signal.

8. Teach, model, and practice how to sit, listen, and ask a question.

9. Be consistently pleasant.

10. Calmly enforce a consequence for every rule broken.

11. Bring a spirit of fun and humor to each day.

12. Breathe, pause often, and take your time.

Together, the items above will build a culture that will guarantee a happy and successful year for you and your students.

But you must never get lazy. You must never become complacent. You must never weaken or waver.

The first week is only a start. Check the twelve items off if you wish, but their excellence must remain your priority until the last minute of the last day of school.

The good news is that they’re simple. Anyone can do them. If you need extra motivation or a deeper understanding of each, click on the embedded links.

And if you’ve already started school, and are in your third week, for example, go back and recommit to them now. Set everything else aside until your students have proven they understand and are able to perform these core skills and expectations.

They’re counting on you, after all, to be a great teacher. They’re so far behind. They’ve lost so much. Their future is at stake.

Are you going to be the one person they need right now more than ever or yet another mediocre teacher that will only set them even farther behind?

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19 thoughts on “Your SCM First-Week-Of-School Checklist”

  1. I agree with all except the rhetorical question asking if we’ll be a mediocre teacher that sets them further behind. I don’t think guilting teachers is necessary. Most of us set out to do our very best and make continuous improvements.

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    • Completely disagree with you. There are soooo many teachers that are so set in their ways that they blame the kids for the continuous struggling culture in their classroom. They refuse to be held accountable, cause they do not see the wrong in their approach. Sometimes being harsh and direct needs to be done in order to get the point across

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  2. I love reading this every Sat morning. Thx! Curious for feedback on the “Getting attention” routine…this has been an issue bc a sizable chunk of the class will keep talking (or talk again in a minute) & keeping track of consequences when 8-10 students are breaking rules is onerous. I’m thinking about telling the class that for this routine, the entire class could have consequences, including the non-offenders. Thoughts?

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    • I think Michael had said that if a group of students like your 8-10 kids are breaking the rules is best to reteach the routine explicitly again.

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  3. I enjoyed reading this kind of article about classroom management. Because a teacher without it, kids who want to learn are going to suffer after all.

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  4. We are already finished with the first two weeks of school. My 7th grade students are doing pretty great with the procedures & classroom management. Except for transitions. Somehow I forgot to put that into the first week instruction. How do I fix this now?

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    • It’s not a “fix”, it’s a natural extension of what you are doing. Tell them they are doing great and now you will introduce a way to transition that will be smoother and less chaotic than the old way. Make it seem like you planned it this way all along.
      I have my students practice getting their chairs into groups for activities and back into rows for note-taking times. I time them (measurement creates motivation) and post their beginning and ending times on the board so they can see their improvement and brag that they beat the other classes. I have them do it over and over about three times the first day, twice the next few days, and then put it into actual use the rest of the year.
      If things get wonky, I say we lost ground and blame Christmas break, or the rain, or something. Then we practice again until it is smooth.
      I find the beginning of an inspirational quote that I say to signal it is time to move into groups- then the kids say the end of the quote back to me as they are moving chairs. Same for getting back into rows but with a different quote. Much of this is from AVID training so if you have an AVID person in your building you could ask them for some ideas.

      Reply
  5. I am the school Instructional Library Aide, fancy title for non-credentialed Librarian. I too love your management style, but since I am not the home room teacher, are there any modifications I should use to not add yet another layer of behaviors on the classes that visit me?
    I always go over my expectations, but they’re only as good as the teacher who enforces them while I work with individual students trying to find a book in a too-short visit.

    Reply
    • I recommend Michael’s book Classroom Management for Art, Music & PE teachers. It is for “specialist” teachers like you that see many different classes per week. I am a Science Specialist for an elementary school & I think this book is EXCELLENT & it WORKS!!!

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  6. Can you explain how to overlook that one student who acts up and ruins transitions for the class, when you said, “no individual student, no matter how disruptive, should affect the number of points given” (Classroom Management for Art, Music & PE Teachers”?

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  7. Hi Michael,

    Thank you for all your work.

    What should a call to a parent look like when a letter has not been signed. Can you give guidance on the structure of the call/rough script?

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      • Hello,

        I am so glad that I found this website. I already purchased the elementary plan and also the 18 lessons from Amazon. My question is: if I follow your basic classroom management plan, can I still do squad points for group work? Or would that defeat the purpose? I am attracted to your elementary plan because it is simple and I can do it. It’s not another thing to keep track of. Unfortunately, I am at one of those schools that discourages any sort of accountability. My coach just says to have points and rewards and free choice. Thank you for your help.

        Reply
  8. I am a specialist teacher, covering Language classes for students in grades 1-8. I have already purchased the Special Classroom management resource, however, my concern is a particular one for Language teachers. My concern is how much time will I need to assert these expectations in their native language before I can transition to the foreign language. I have read that anything having to do with management and expectations should be taught in their native language. I wonder if anyone has tried to maintain the management aspect while still remaining in the target language?

    Reply

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