Launching the year with purpose

Creating a Class Agreement is a powerful way to developing a sense of class purpose. When students are asked to be active agents in creating the sort of classroom they can learn best in, we invite them into a sense of belonging as well as responsibility. However, this invitation needs careful framing to help bring out from pupils the sort of thinking that will bring them together to focus on learning.

A sample class agreement

‘Agreements’ are more effective than ‘rules’

When pupils are involved in the process of setting their own class expectations, they are more likely to try and live up to them, more likely to internalise those expectations, and so, more likely to respond to teachers’ reminders if they go off-track. Creating a ‘Class Agreement’ can be powerful in designing a space where pupils feel ownership of what their class is all about. When class expectations are set up as agreements rather than rules it not only increases buy-in but also sets up a collaborative community right from the start.

Warm-up the context

It’s difficult for our pupils to move straight into new and abstract ideas. They need a reminder of what is already known as a springboard. It can help to start from pupils’ own thinking, writing or drawing for themselves, before moving on to sharing ideas with a partner or in fours and then in a larger group. Classes that gel are ones that frequently get to change who they work with. Plan to mix up who the children are working with by changing tables, asking them to talk to each other in pairs, and by using the ‘fours’ technique (where pairs from different tables work together).

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Each of these stages needs to draw on questions that enable the students to move step by step to a joint purpose. Useful questions can include:

• What was our favourite thing about our class last year? Why?

• What have you heard about what you will learn this year? Which of the things you heard excited you the most? Were there any things you were not so keen on?

• What are you hoping to learn this year? Why?

Time co-creating a vision of the classroom environment is a time investment in children’s participation and involvement in their own learning. The lesson can be brought to life through structuring the conversations, and using labels, pictures and drawings to bring their hopes to life.

Create a rich picture of a class in which they would like to learn

This stage is all about getting a concrete grasp of an abstract idea. What is the class that the children want to be in and work in? Question prompts that can help explore these ideas include:

• Try to remember a particular experience during the previous year when you felt good about yourself or about everyone else and school was just great.

• What exactly was going on when you felt that way?

• Were there rules that helped or made it worse?

• How was the class set up?

It can be useful to make the picture even clearer by contrasting it with a class they would not want to learn in, again starting from what is known and familiar to them:

• Try to remember a particular experience during the previous year when you felt bad about yourself or about everyone else and you couldn’t wait for it to be over. What exactly was going on when you were feeling that way?

• How was the class set up?

• Were there rules that helped or made it worse?

• What can we do this year to make sure things go better?

Move towards simplicity

A deep and rich picture can be overwhelming to try and live up to, so the final stage is to summarise the work, using questions that can draw these ideas together into 5-7 key elements e.g.:

• If this classroom was learning well together – what would an observer see us doing? Hear us doing? Feel when they were with us?

• What do we need to feel safe and successful here? How can we make this a space where very single person feels respected?

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Classes can come up with a range of phrases for their agreements, but here are some statements that classes often choose to include:

• We listen to each other and take turns speaking.

• We know we won’t always agree, so we give people space to have their own opinions and respect other people’s ideas.

• We take responsibility for our actions and find ways to fix it up when we get it wrong.

• We keep our classroom clean and organized.

• We help each other learn and grow.

• We stay focused on our tasks and try our best.

• We speak kindly to each other and use positive language.

• We celebrate each other’s successes and encourage each other.

An agreement with 5 to 7 statements is what you’re aiming for – most people just don’t remember more than 5 to 7 things, so build in time to make sure that you can all agree to the best choice of statements. It can be worth thinking back to the examples the children gave of good and awful times in school - would these statements have been useful in those situations? Or do they need changing?