Set Middle School Students Up for Success with Classroom Procedures

You take steps toward creating a positive learning environment when you set middle school students up for success with classroom procedures.

Starting the school year off right with students is all about setting high expectations and instilling good classroom procedures to help everything run more smoothly.

Many teachers dive right into content at the beginning of the year without any regard for setting up the classroom procedures that will be the backbone of the expectations and environment we build within our classroom for the rest of the year.

Setting expectations for what students do when they come into the room, how they ask to use the restroom, or even how to approach the teacher about missing work will make working with the students much easier as the year moves on.

Classroom Procedures to Focus on in Middle School ELA

Here are some of the main classroom procedures we believe are most important to setting up a strong learning environment in middle school. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and for some of these things, the school may have a policy in place, but you should always address it explicitly in your class as well.

• What are students expected to bring to class?
• What happens if students do not bring all of their supplies to class?
• Where are classroom supplies?
• When are the supplies allowed to be used?
• How are groups decided?
• How are seating charts created?
• How do students ask to use the restroom?
• What happens when phones are seen? Heard? Used?
• How and when is technology used in the classroom?
• What will happen if students come to the room unprepared?
• How should the student approach the teacher when they know they will be absent or tardy?
• How should students approach the teacher if they have an emergency or unexpected absence?
• How should students approach the teacher if they did not complete an assignment by the due date?
• How and when will a teacher allow students to leave the classroom during instruction?
• How should a student report to the teacher if a group member is not fulfilling their role in the group?
• How should students approach the teacher if they have concerns about the content they are learning in the class?

One of the things that separates good classroom management from bad classroom management is having good classroom procedures in place and practicing them regularly. Being willing to go over classroom procedures, practice them, test on them, and expect them to be followed EVERY DAY creates a consistency that students learn to expect from you as a teacher and in your classroom environment.

Using Common Resources

In addition to setting up specific classroom procedures, having consistent practices such as expected bell ringer activities or exit slips also help with classroom management because students know exactly what they are expected to do as they come into the classroom or leave the classroom each day.

In this post, we talk about using Paired Passages as bell ringers or exit tickets, and we have enough paired passages available to use this strategy for the entire semester!

What additional classroom procedures do you go over with students? Do you have any special tips or tricks? We’d love to hear them!

Have a great day!