Establishing Class Rules

There are lots of philosophies on creating class rules. Some teachers try to keep their list to five, and have it posted on the wall to go over with students on that first day of school. Other teachers rather create a list of class rules with their students so that they have more ownership in the rules and hopefully, will be more likely to follow them.

Personally, I don’t really do either. I have a class discussion about what they think our class rules should be and why it would make sense to have those rules in place. Sometimes I’ll record their ideas on chart paper, other times we keep it to a discussion. When we get to the end, I tell them that they have great ideas (they always do) but I think we only need to have ONE  rule in our class – can they guess what it is? Someone always names my ONE rule: RESPECT.

Everything else, all of the other rules, fall under the umbrella of respect and so I keep it to that. We talk about examples of what respectful behavior looks like and what it does not look like. They’re in grade 7 – they know! Our “Respect” rule is in place for all of us – them and me. I tell them that I will always show them respect and I need for them to show that respect back to me, their classmates and the school. If we can follow our one rule – we won’t have too many problems!

I always look forward to this class discussion, because it’s effective in setting the expectations and tone for the class, for the rest of the year!

How do you go about establishing rules in your class?