If you surveyed experienced teachers about the role of management at the beginning of the school year, you would undoubtedly hear comments about management and instructional preparations before school starts and about ways to plan for the fist days of the school year. Studies on classroom management have verified that the first few days of the school year set the tone for the entire year.
To prepare, you can make management preparations and instructional preparations, establish a plan for misbehaviour, and also plan for the first day of school. When the school year finally begins, there are certain actions that are appropriate during the first day and over the following few days.
MAKING MANAGEMENT PREPARATIONS
It is important to consider carefully a variety of management issues such as your school environment, room arrangement, materials, rules and procedures, communication with parents, seating arrangements, and other issues. Based on a study of experienced teachers (Schell & Burden, 1992), you could direct your attention to the following classroom management issues.
1. The School Environment
The first step is to become thoroughly familiar with the total environment before school starts : the room, school, facilities, personnel, services, resources, policies and procedures, other teachers, children and the community. You will then have more information upon which to make decisions, will probable feel more confident about your job, and will not need to devote time in the first fewe weeks to gather this information.
2. Room Arrangement
Room arrangement is an issue that can be decided before school starts. Take into account the fixed features in the room, instructional materials, and supplies, traffic areas, work areas, boundaries for activity areas, visibility to see all students, and the purposes of various seating arrangements. Determine the arrangement in the classroom for your deask, the students’ desks, tablesm book shelves, filling cabinets, and other furniture.
3. Room Decoration
It is important to make your classroom an attractive, comfortable place. Consider having some plants in the classroom, or even an aquarium. Displays of pictures, posters, charts and maps also help cover the walls with informative and appealing materials. Attractive bulletin boards add colour. You might prepare one bulletin board listing classroom information and use another one to display seasonal items. After school starts, you could have students prepare bulletin boards.
4. Gather Support Materials
After examining the curriculum guide and the textbooks, you might have ideas about activities for a certain unit or lesson. Supplementary materials may be needed when the time comes to teach that lesson. This is the time to gather any additional support materials such as games and devices, pictures, casette tapes, ideas for activities, charts, maps and graphs. The school may have discretionary funds for their purchase. They may obtained from school supply catalogs, a local teacher store, or even at garage sales.
5. Organize Materials
It is useful to set up a filling system for storing district and school communications and other important documents. Papers kept in a filling cabinet include the ditrict’s policy handbook; correspondence from the principal, superintendent, or other supervisors; correspondence from profesional organizations; lesson plans; and items on curricular content.
Some teachers use file folders. A separate file folder may be created for each course unit to hold petinent notes and resource materials. Textbooks, resources books, manipulative materials, and other types of instructional supplies and materials also need to be organized and stored.
6. Classroom Procedures
You can follow various procedures to accomplish specific tasks. Procedures may be identified regarding handling in completed work, sharpening a pencil, using restroom, or putting away supplies. Before school starts, identify action or activities requiring procedures that would contribute to a smoothly running classroom, and then decide what those procedures should be.
7. Classroom Helpers
Teachers call upon students at all grade levels as helpers to perform various classroom tasks. Make a list of tasks that need to be done and then decide which ones students could perform. Give attention to how task assignment will be rotated to give every student an opportunity to help. Roles are often held for one or two weeks before the assignments are rotated. Depending on the grade level and circumstances, some tasks may include students as line leaders, light switcher, pencil sharpener, paper colector, plant waterer, chalkboard eraser, window and blind opener, and supply manager.
8. Class Lists and Rosters
It is useful to plan a means to record whether students have returned their book orders, picture money, field-trip permission forms, and so on. You can prepare a generic class roster listing the students’ names in alphabetical order in the left column, with blank columns on the right to check off the action. It is helpful to input the list on a computer program so that an updated sheet can be easily generated when the roster changes.
9. Home/ School Communication
Open communication with parents is vital. Before the school starts, many teachers prepare an introductory letter to parents to welcome them and to inform them about the teacher, the curriculum, grading pratices and standards, the homework policy, rules and procedures, and so on. This letter can be sent home with the students on the first day of school. Teachers can also make a plans for other types of parental communication such as phone calls, progress reports, or a back-to-school night.
To establish good relationship with parents you might send a postcard or a letter to their students before school starts. The greeting could include a personal and positive welcome, a list of some activities you plan for the school year, and perhaps a request that the student bring something special to school.
10. Celebrations
Most schools have very specific policies for celebrating major holidays, such as Halloween, Christmas, Marthin Luther King, and Easter. Inquire about these policies so you’ll understand what is expected.
11. Room Identification
On the first day of school, students need to locate your classroom. Especially for students new to the building, it is important to have the room clearly labelled. A poster on the outside doorway should include the room number, the teacher’s name, the grade level and/or subject (Room 211, Mr. Wagner, World History) this information should also be written on the chalkboard so students see that they are in the correct classroom. Some type of welcoming statement should also be placed on the chalkboard such as: “Welcome; I’m glad you are here”.
12. Seat Selections and Arrangement
One teacher may prefer to select each student’s seat, while another lets the student select their seats. This decision should be made before school starts. In either case, be sure that there are enough seats for the number of students you expect. You might take the age level and maturity of the students into account as you select the manner of assigning seats.
Inspect the seats to be sure they are not damaged and that they are of sizes to accommodate your students. You might change the seating arrangements during the school year to accommodate work groups, to move students who need close supervision to more accessible seats, or simply to provide a change.
13. Distributing Textbooks
Sometime in the first few day of school, you will need to distribute textbooks. You need to obtain the textbooks and prepare an inventory from on which to record each book number, with a space in which to write the student’s name.
You need to think about when and how the textbooks will be distributed. Since the first day of school often necessitates many announcements and activities, you might want to wait until the second or third day before distributing textbooks, or distribute them just befire they are needed for the first day. Attention might be given to the specific means of distribution. One way is to have students line up one row at a time and go to the table where the books are stacked. When giving the book to the student, youcan record the student’s name on the inventory form.
14. Opening Class Routine
Students often perform better when tey know that a particula routine will be regularly followed at the start of class. You can decide on the particular action to be taken. You may need to take attendance, make announcements, and attend to other tasks at the start of the class period. The purpose of having a routine is to provide an orderly transition as students enter the room and get ready for instruction. Some teachers have students review vocabulary words or other problems related to the curriculum while other tasks are performed.
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