I maintain that training and establishing routines and procedures MUST be the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY in any classroom at the start of the school year. Once these processes are in place, then learning can occur. Habits are important. I have read that it takes twenty-two days for a habit, good or bad, to establish. Once established, practice and adherence ensure they stay in place.

While setting these strategies in place takes time, it is time well spent. Good classroom habits and practices that sit aside and complement class rules and procedures ensure that things go smoothly through their training. The time initially spent on this ordering returns tenfold in benefit terms because interruptions and disruptions are avoided. Boundaries are established. Expectations that have been discussed and programmed unfold practically daily in support of the class, teaching, learning and development.

[The pity is that as children move up the grades or experience different teachers on rotation, the training can lapse, and attitudes can deteriorate. Reinforcement and gentle reminders are necessary. The most important is the need for the school A principal or delegate to ensure that incoming teachers are aware of the need to establish procedures with the class in the ways already discussed. Each teacher must develop their overall routines, procedures and expectations. They are not inherited and don’t pass from one teacher to the next.]

Teaching is spoiled, and learning is diminished if management devices are not in place and practised. Teachers can be too busy valiantly attempting to control, manage, discipline, and teach. They wear themselves to frazzles and finish up with a group of students ranging from the disruptive (those setting the class social agenda) to the very frustrated (those who want to learn but are not taught because the teacher is too preoccupied to teach).

Processes, procedures, rules, and regulations can be reinforcing and satisfying. That satisfaction embraces students, teachers, the class as a community of learners, and the school as a whole.