At the beginning of a school year, I found having an open discussion with the class to be very useful in classroom management and setting the tone for basic classroom expectations.

At my practicum school, my students and I discussed what it meant to have an excellent day in school. We came up with a list that included having a positive attitude, behaving responsibly, being organized, completing homework on time, staying on task and helping others. At the same time, we also discussed about consequences; what would be fair consequences if rules were broken.

Getting students’ input on how we would like to run our class together, students felt involved and were more willing to participate in making up the classroom community. As a result, my class was a peaceful environment where students enjoyed working and helping each other learn.

I loved this exercise and would highly recommend any new teacher to use this strategy to start-up his/her classroom.