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a ready-to-run workshopThe First Weeks
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The First Weeks: Setting Up Your Classroom (Workshop)

How you spend the first weeks sets the tone for the whole year. The classrooms that run smoothly in May were established in the first few weeks, when teachers invested in relationships, routines, and expectations before rushing into content.

Key takeaway

Investing the first weeks in relationships, routines, and clear expectations pays back all year; the orderly classroom in spring was built in September.

Format
PLC / team meeting
Length
45 minutes
Group size
Any (works 4-40)
Who can run it
Any teacher-leader
You will need
Slides (5)Printed handoutYour scheduleA timer
Aligned to
Learning Forward: Transformational ProcessesInTASC 3: Learning EnvironmentsEmmer & Evertson: classroom management
Share / assign

Why it works

Classroom management research consistently finds that the most effective teachers establish expectations, routines, and relationships deliberately at the start of the year, rather than reacting to problems as they arise. The front-loaded investment prevents the escalation that unstructured early weeks produce.

The research: Emmer and Evertson on the start of the year; Wong on the first days of school.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

    The core activity: plan your first-weeks priorities

    Teachers leave with a sequenced plan for the first weeks that puts routines and relationships before heavy content.

    Front-load the investmentTime spent on routines and relationships in the first weeks is not time away from learning. It is what makes the rest of the year's learning possible.

    Facilitator notes

    A rules lecture is not managementReading a list of rules on day one does little. Teach and practice the routines, and invest in knowing students.

    Adapt it

    Participant handout

    One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

    K12 Academics · Professional Learning

    The First Weeks: establish before you teach

    <b>Front-load the year:</b> routines, relationships, and a few clear expectations before heavy content.

    1. My highest-frequency routines to teach first:
    2. My week-one relationship moves:
    3. My few clear expectations:
    4. How I teach them:
    5. How routines come before heavy content:

    Make it stick

    Establish, do not react:

    Common questions

    Shouldn't I dive into content on day one?
    A little, but the time spent establishing routines and relationships early is repaid many times over in reclaimed learning time later.
    What if I inherit a class mid-year or it is already chaotic?
    You can run a reset: reteach expectations and routines as if it were the start, explicitly and without blame.
    What should the first week prioritize?
    Relationships, the handful of highest-frequency routines, and a few clear expectations, taught and practiced, not a long rules lecture.

    Go deeper

    Build it into a bigger day

    Workshop
    Routines & Procedures
    Workshop
    Building Relationships
    Workshop
    Responding to Disruption