Building a Positive Classroom Culture

As an educator passionate about ensuring learning is happening wherever we happen to be, I'm constantly looking for methods to improve or enhance our class culture.  Some years, this culture seems to develop naturally.  Other years, it's a long, hard slog towards building an environment where our learners gel and work positively and productively together.

Positive culture at the forefront, we are currently working on persistence in our room.  This means that I have to be persistent despite the current challenges also.  Let's start with our morning.  I could get busy in the morning, not have the roll and the notices ready to go and it would then take us time to get settled.  We've tried taking turns to read the notices and a number of students struggle with staying on task and listening for that length of time.  Initially, we trialled this as an opportunity for leadership in our room.  I'm now working on developing some new ideas around how we can develop leadership while still ensuring we get thing done quickly and positively and effectively.  So let's try something new.

• Roll and notices ready to go.
• Start with thumbs up for how everyone is feeling.  Or "move to a space" for state of wellbeing etc.
• Time the roll - points for volume - contribution to the class.  Start with 30 points.  Points added for if students speak with an appropriate volume and mention a student when they are absent.
• Leader leads Karakia, Kiwaha and Whakatauki.  They then position themselves at the notice board and add important info from the notices as I read them, making sure to list everything that pertains to anyone in our class.  
• Wall of Fame will show who is in which team, so we are sure of which notices to listen for and note down.
• Kids sit on chairs up by the board rather than at their desks.  If the whole class are already in that space they are awarded two marbles on our jar.  If most of the class are there, we get one.
• Leader recaps important notices. Ensure we add things like litter and uniform if they are stressed by our leaders to ensure these foci are retained.
• Leaders read our important goals and focus tasks to complete for the day, highlighting students who are finished and could help x students who are as yet unfinished.
• Share a learning goal with your buddy around learning habits.
• From here we transition straight into our poem of the week to have some collaborative time.

I'm interested to see how this will work.  I've also decided that we need to have some strict routines around certain types of learning to ensure we are getting things finished more regularly, which is where our tracking board comes in.  More on that soon.

I've worked with some important specialists this year who are always challenging me around my practice.  This is necessary even though it's often uncomfortable.  Focus on excellence means existing in these uncomfortable learning spaces.  I'm in the pit often, but that's okay because I'm always constructing my staircase to get out.