In this episode we are going to be talking about how to settle or calm down a noisy and disruptive class. Before we get into it I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by the Behavior Management Blueprint. This is my FREE e-book on the five key essentials of classroom management and it also comes with a free mini video course as well. You can download that by clicking the link at the end of the blog.

Prefer to watch the video, Click here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cze1d9dq60

 

Firstly I just want to establish some context for what I am going to teach you. How can you establish a routine that is going to calm down your class? For future lessons you may not find that these techniques work, if you are in the middle of a lesson and the class is out of control. There are some other techniques that I can show you for that. This is more about showing you some routines that you can put into play so that your class remains calm all the time. So if you have a particularly noisy or disruptive class, you can use these tips. You will find that it establishes a calmer routine and it will help you to once again gain control over those disruptions in your class.

Everything that I am going to teach you happens in the first 5 to 10 minutes of your lesson but it is really effective in calming down a rambunctious noisy or disruptive class.

 

1. Meet you students at the door

The first thing is this: learn to meet your students at the door. By meeting them at the door, first of all you get to talk to the students that may want to engage with the teacher. They might have a problem, they may have some concerns that they want to get off their chest. By being there talking to them you actually help to keep those disruptions outside of the class before everybody else comes in. It also places you as an authority over the classroom. When you manage the doorway or you manage the entry points to your room you establish yourself as the person who is in charge of the room. So by standing at the door making sure it is closed and meeting your students, you are having a chance to build relationships, learn about what’s going on in their world but also establish yourself as the person that is in charge of the classroom.

 

2. Line them up

The second thing you need to do is line them up. Have some kind of starting routine where they give you their attention and they understand that they are transitioning from say a play time to a learning time. Maybe it is from a social time to a time of concentration and a time of paying attention to what you need to teach them.

So that starting routine of lining up is what I would call a micro compliance. It is a little request that you make of them to see if they are willing to comply with your instructions. What you will find is that 80 percent of your kids do comply, probably about 20 percent may give you a little bit of guff or may drag their feet while doing it but you can generally, with gentle conversation, get them into line and it just helps you to establish your position as the person who’s in charge of the class. It helps you to see who is ready for learning or who is out of sorts and perhaps not ready for learning.

 

3. Manage the way they walk through the door

The third thing is this, you need to manage the way that they walk through the door. The way in which students walk through the door will establish the tone by which they start their lesson. There is a very well-known concept called the “Doorway Effect.” When you walk through a door, your brain momentarily forgets what it has been thinking of in order to take in behavioral information. So if your students are walking through the door, their mind is momentarily forgetting what they were doing previously, they are taking in information about how they should behave in the new environment.

If they are pushing, shoving, shouting and being rambunctious as they walk through the door that is the behavior information they take in and that’s how they will be when they come into the classroom. If you establish with your class that they walk through the door quietly, single file, they do not push, they do not shove, then that behavior information is what they are taking in, which is, this is a calm learning environment and I need to conduct myself in a way that suits this new environment.

 

4. Have a Starting Routine

The fourth thing is this; have a starting routine that they can do which is silent, independent and does not require you to interact or help them in any way. This is a simple routine. It is not something complex, it is not a task that they need help with and is not a task that you need to explicitly teach. Something as simple as a word search, a math mentor’s quiz, reading a book silently or mindfulness coloring in something that will actually help them to calm down and bring their focus under control. It does not have to be long, it has to be about five minutes. It gives you a chance to walk around the class, settle any of your high flyers down, get your stuff ready for your lesson and get the class calm and ready for learning. So make sure you have a starting routine.

 

5. Have an attention grabber

The fifth tip to get a noisy class under control is this; make sure you have an attention grabber that you can use when you need to talk to your class. Do not talk over the top of them and do not give instructions when they are not engaged with you. Make sure you have some attention grabber that gets their attention back to you and silences them so that you can actually communicate. A lot of the time, when classes are noisy, we teachers have a habit of shouting over the top of them or raising our voices. All that does is make the noise worse and it makes us hoarse, so don’t shout over the top of your class. Do not use a louder voice than they do, just have an attention grabber that brings them back to you.

Make sure you wait till everybody is focused on you and then give your instruction or give your lesson as need be and keep doing this all day every day. Do not try and compete with noise in your class, make sure you manage that through an attention grabber.

 

So if you do those five things, meet them at the door, line them up, manage how they walk through the door, have a starting routine and use an attention grabber, you will find that your noisy classes become more manageable and less disruptive. Time and time again when I have taught this to new and beginning teachers and experienced teachers alike they report back that this particular routine works all the time and it has a profound effect on noisy and disruptive classes. Give it a go and let me know what you think in the comments. I would love to hear back from you. 

 

I hope that was really helpful, If you want to learn more tips like this do not forget to check out our online course called “Behavior Management Essentials.” The link is in the description below. It is four hours of content, a deep dive into behaviour management, taken from our live workshops. If you have enjoyed this, then share it with somebody that you think would benefit and I will see you next time.

 

If you would like to learn more about managing classroom behaviour effectively, why not check out our FREE video course Behaviour Management Blueprint. See below for details.

https://calmerclassrooms.today/blueprint/

​Essential Strategies for Effective Behaviour Management