Classroom Management

10.12.26  Following Through with Consequences

Managing a classroom of 20 or more students can be challenging, and even the best classroom management plans won’t prevent every behavior issue. There will be times when you need to address a student’s behavior and follow through with a consequence. It can be tempting to give one more warning, especially when you want to avoid a confrontation. However, consistent and fair consequences help create a classroom where students know what to expect and feel secure in the boundaries you’ve established.

Best Practices

• Stay calm. Keeping your cool can help prevent a situation from escalating. Use a calm, neutral tone and avoid letting frustration take over. You don’t have to show anger to show that you mean what you say.

• Be brief. Clearly and calmly state the expectation and the consequence. Avoid lengthy lectures or getting drawn into an argument. If a student wants to discuss the situation further, let them know you’re happy to talk privately before or after school or at another appropriate time.

• Use logical consequences. Whenever possible, connect the consequence to the behavior. For example, if a student makes a mess, have them clean it up. Logical consequences help students understand the impact of their choices and how to make things right.

• Follow through on what you say. Avoid making threats in the heat of the moment or assigning consequences you don’t intend to enforce. When expectations and consequences have been clearly established, students should know what to expect. If a student chooses not to follow the expectations, follow through calmly and fairly.

• Protect the student’s dignity. Address the behavior without embarrassing the student. When possible, speak privately or wait until an appropriate time to provide feedback. The goal is to correct the behavior while maintaining a positive relationship with the student.

• Be consistent. Follow the classroom management plan you’ve established. If your plan calls for contacting home after a certain number of warnings, make that call. Consistency helps students see that expectations apply to everyone and that you will follow through fairly.

Putting It All Together

Following through with consequences doesn’t mean being harsh or inflexible. It means being clear, fair, and dependable. Students may not always like a consequence, but they should be able to trust that you will handle situations calmly and consistently. When you combine clear expectations with respectful interactions and opportunities for students to learn from their mistakes, you create a classroom environment where students can take responsibility for their choices and get back to learning. Remember, the goal isn’t simply to correct behavior in the moment—it’s to help students develop the skills and habits they need to be successful.

For more information on discipline expectations and structure at WRHS, visit pages 68 - 72 of the WRHS Staff Handbook. 

• Renfro

09.28.26 Clear Expectations, Rules, and Procedures 

One important piece of classroom management is setting, teaching, and reinforcing classroom expectations, rules, and procedures. These provide students with structure and predictability. When students know what they should be doing and how they should be behaving, they can spend more of their energy focusing on learning rather than figuring out what is expected of them.

Whenever possible, involving students in creating some of the classroom expectations can also be helpful. Giving students a voice in the process can help build a sense of community and increase their investment in following the expectations.

Consistency is another key piece. When expectations and rules are enforced fairly and consistently, students know what to expect and understand that their choices have consequences. Consistency can also help you maintain the flow of your classroom, prevent situations from escalating, and reduce the mental load of having to decide how to respond each time a student does not meet an expectation.

The first few weeks of school are an especially important time to establish and practice expectations, rules, and procedures. But remember—you don't have to teach them once and never revisit them! Expectations can be reinforced throughout the year, especially when students are beginning a new type of activity.

For example, if students are getting ready to participate in a lab, stations, small-group activity, or partner work, taking a minute to review what you expect before the activity begins can help set everyone up for success. A quick reminder can go a long way toward preventing confusion and keeping the activity running smoothly.

A Simple Tool: ATM

One resource you might find helpful is the ATM format:

• A — Act: What should students be doing?

• T — Talk: When and how should students be talking?

• M — Move: Where should students be and when can they move?

You can create an ATM poster or quick reference for different situations in your classroom, such as whole-group instruction, small groups, partner work, or stations.

Here are some helpful tips when using ATM:

1. Create a visual display - have a poster or presentation slide available before you begin the activity. 

2. Explicitly state ahead of time - Use your visual display to reteach/preteach ATM expectations before you get started. 

3. Model - Model or ask a student to model the expected behaviors. 

4. Correct and Reinforce - Refer back to the ATM visual to correct behaviors and give feedback. For example, if the classroom is getting too chaotic or noisy, you can point to the ATM poster and say something like, “Class, check our ATM board. Right now, our Talk Expectation is Level 0, but I am hearing Level 2 voices.”

The goal isn't to create a long list of rules for every situation. Instead, ATM gives students a simple, consistent way to understand what is expected of them in different classroom settings.

• Renfro

References

09.02.26 Creating a seating chart in Infinite Campus

Infinite Campus launched a redesign for the Seating Chart tool. You can create multiple seating charts for one class. Creating a seating chart is done in two parts: arranging desks in the Layout tab and then placing students in the desks in the Students tab.

1. Log into Infinite Campus

2. On the left hand sidebar, choose Instruction

3. Under Students, choose Seating Charts 

4. Click New at the top of the screen. The chart defaults to the section you're currently viewing. If you're the Primary Teacher for more than one section during a period, create a chart for multiple sections by clicking Edit Sections and selecting additional sections to create a combined chart. 

5. Enter a Name for the chart.

6. If this chart should be the primary one for this section, mark Set as Primary. The primary chart is the one used for attendance. 

7. Add seats to the layout. Add them individually by clicking Add Seat, or click Add Seat Grid to add multiple seats in a grid pattern. 

8. Rearrange seats to fit the layout of your room. 

9. Click and drag a seat by clicking the six-dots icon at the bottom left. Your cursor displays as a hand when you hover over this icon. 

10. Once the seats are arranged, go to the Students tab. You can return to the Layout tab at any point to adjust seats. 

11. Place students individually from the Unseated Students by clicking the six-dots icon and dragging the student to an empty seat. Or Auto-place Unseated Students using the dropdown at the top. Students can be placed randomly, alphabetically by name, by student number, or by birthdate. If you click and drag a student to a seat that is already filled, the students swap places. 

12. Click Save to finish creating your seating chart.

Once you've created a seating chart, you can copy it to reuse the layout and print it. For more information, visit the Infinite Campus help section “Seating Charts - Start Here”.

• Renfro

09.01.26  Benefits and Uses of Seating Charts 

Students like choosing their own seats in class and many high school classrooms have this practice. As a high school teacher, seating charts may feel elementary, or like a punishment. However, seating charts at the secondary level not only improve classroom management, they also have many benefits for our students.

• Create a sense of community, promote connection, and encourage new interactions and relationships. Seating students by peers they may not normally interact with gives them an opportunity to build connections they may not otherwise seek out. It gives them an opportunity to practice social skills in a safe environment, such as learning to work with a variety of people and forging new friendships.