The start of a new year holds so much promise. So, why do you end the first week back at school with your voice shattered, a never-ending headache and a takeaway in bed?  

Often the answer is routines - or actually, a lack of. The thing about routines is that they need to be, well, routine. If you’re anything like I used to be, you underestimate this key point and assume your pupils remember the routines from the term before. When they don’t, behaviour is a real struggle. You find yourself repeating the phrases “I’m so disappointed”; “What a horrible way to start the year”; and, “You know better than this”. 

To make your life easier as you enter 2023, take the time to re-establish routines in the first lessons back. Here’s how I do it.

Plan for it 

You know your class: their strengths and what they are likely to need extra support with. You also know the best time in your timetable to fit in a refresher of classroom routines. So, make sure you explicitly plan for it - just as you would plan to teach any aspect of the curriculum.

If you don’t plan it, revisiting routines will wind up being reactive, rather than proactive. Try the following:

• Add it to your visual timetable.
• Drip feed it into your first week back.
• Pick a specific behaviour or routine focus for each lesson.
• Have cards for different routines and pick one each morning to discuss.

Structure 

After a holiday, it’s normal for children to be a bit restless. Aren’t we all? The best thing we can do to support our children is to provide structure. This helps them to slip back into routines naturally. 

Plan in more closed and timed activities to make that structure more explicit. For example, perhaps children can come straight in from play to practise times tables on their whiteboard. This decreases any dead time and gets children back into the learning zone.

You can also draw attention to normal parts of your structure to re-establish expectations. For example: “So, we are using our whiteboards now, who can remember how we hold them on the carpet? I wonder if you can all show me? Wow, it’s like you were never gone!”

Let them do the talking

Your children have heard these rules before. If we approach revisiting them like it’s the first time we’ve ever introduced them, there will be eye rolls and nodding heads. So, rather than you explaining the rules to pupils, get them to do the explaining. By letting them do so, you give them more ownership and accountability over your classroom routines. Try some of these activities:

• Put children in groups and give them different scenarios; some will be of positive behaviour and some will not. Ask them to act out the scenario, and then shout “freeze” and get them to hold the position of when the behaviour manifests. The rest of the class can then unpick the behaviour and identify it as positive or not.
   
• Introduce “what would you do?” quizzes, that include questions like: “You have finished your work and I am working with a group, what would you do?” The idea is that when the scenario then happens in reality, they will have a solution ready. Choose questions based on what you think your children need the most preparation with.
   
• Give children a selection of different routines, and ask them to create posters on how to follow them that can be displayed around school. If you need them to do some writing, turn it into an explanation piece or instructional piece to kill two birds with one stone. 
   
• Tell your pupils that their parents have no idea about their classroom routines, and that you want them to help them understand. Put children in groups and give them a routine like “home time” or “tidy up”. They can choose how they explain it, whether it’s acting out or drawing, and then ask them to present it back to the class while you video it to share with parents. 
   
• Have you got a big group task planned? Before you do it, have children think about the expectations and guidelines. Children could write ideas on post-its, on their whiteboards or on big pieces of paper. This gives children an opportunity to process and reflect before they start. It also allows you to praise children before they have started, and shape their answers, so you are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Explore your teaching toolkit

The expectations and routines might stay the same, but the way you teach them can change. So, mix it up and keep it interesting. Here are some ideas:

• Play “guess the routine”, taboo style. You can do this as a whole class activity. Get a volunteer to sit facing the class, with their back to the board. Write a routine on the board, for example, ”partner talk”, and ask the children to describe the routine to the volunteer. However, there is a catch: underneath the routine is a set of taboo words they cannot use, like “partner”, “talk”, “discussion”, “carpet”. 
   
• You can also play this through Pictionary. Have a list of routines on the whiteboard and put children in partners or groups. One person chooses a routine to represent in a drawing, while the rest of the group guesses what it is. To make it trickier, you could write routines on a post-it note and give them to children rather than having all the routines on the board.
   
• Print off pictures of different routines and ask the children where they might go on your visual timetable. This is a great activity for children to think about how often they do routines or when to expect them. For example, tidying up comes up throughout the day. 
   
• Conduct an easy whole-class review of behaviour by saying something like: “Tidy up: freeze frame”. The pupils must then show you what this looks like. This is easy to do in a spare two minutes. 
   
• Lighten the mood and act out a terrible example of a routine. Ask children to tweak and refine it for you until it is right - and don’t be afraid to really play the part.
   
• Have a look for photos of your children from the autumn term doing the right thing, and add them to a PowerPoint slide. Cover the image with squares. Then duplicate the slide, several times, removing a square each time. Can the class identify the routine before it is all revealed?

Positivity 

Being negative about what children have forgotten, and how much time they are wasting, won’t motivate them. Instead, be positive.

Look at re-establishing expectations as a continuous learning process. You wouldn’t say: “Oh dear, you’re not blending properly. You were blending before the holidays. What a shame.” We would notice this as a need for support and adapt our teaching accordingly.

We need to take the same approach to routines and reflect on our own practice. Are some routines outdated? Are they still working? Are you being clear enough? If you feel like you have used the same routine for the whole of the autumn term and it simply isn’t working, it might be time to give it the boot and change it up. 

Jen Foster is a London-based educator and teacher trainer