1b Evidence

Setting clear expectations can help communicate shared values that improve classroom and school culture

To create a calm, purposeful classroom environment, it is key to focus on the positive behaviours you expect (Coe et al., 2014). You can do this through:

Conveying clear expectations (“this is how we do things here”)
Giving precise instructions about what is expected.

This clarity of expectations is essential to securing good behaviour from your pupils. In communicating these standards, we also need to explain in detail how pupils are expected to meet them. Experienced teachers will do this explicitly, early on with every new class and continue to reinforce their expectations all the time. They also lead by example, role-modelling the behaviours they expect from pupils.

Avoid this	Try this
What the teacher should avoid, and things they should try to avoid saying	What the teacher should try to do, and how they might say it
Avoid questions that you don’t need to know the answer to. “Why are you out of your seat?”	Focus on what pupils are doing and what they are expected to do. “We put our hands up when we want to answer a question.”
Avoid questions that you don’t need to know the answer to. "Can you please stop talking?"	Give clear instructions about what is expected. “We hang our coats on the hooks so that nobody trips up.”
Avoid telling pupils what they should not be doing. "Don’t call out."	Focus on the behaviour rather than the individual. “Some pupils are using the sink area well.”
Avoid focusing on secondary behaviours, like eye-rolling, huffing, sulking. “Don’t use that tone of voice to speak to me.”	Enable pupils to respond to expectations. “I’ll give you a few minutes now to get on with your work over there."

It is important to maintain a positive, calm climate and we can do this through focusing on what we want to see pupils doing. Teachers can use both verbal and non-verbal prompts to communicate their expectations of behaviour to the pupils. It is also important that you give pupils an opportunity to adjust their behaviour before escalating things.

Verbal prompts

Instructions
Praise
Saying “Thank you”
Reinforcement
Giving pupils choices
Reminders of school behaviour policy

Non-verbal prompts

Smiling or frowning
Nodding or shaking head
Eye contact
Hand signals like thumbs up
Position in the room
Silent speaking – mouthing “thank you” or “no” to a pupil
Turning a pupil’s book to the right page

While pupils should have a clear understanding of our general expectations for their behaviour, this should be reinforced for specific activities. When giving task instructions we need to make it clear to pupils what we want them to do and the behaviour we expect to see as they complete the task. Being crystal clear about our expectations will support our pupils in knowing exactly what to do.

When explaining a task, you should:

Provide clear instructions to complete it
Provide clear expectations for behaviour, for example that the task should be completed in silence or in pairs etc.

Once you have given instructions:

Visibly scan the room to check who is following your instructions
Praise pupils who have begun the task
Verbally remind anyone who is speaking that the task is to be completed in silence
Use non-verbal signals to encourage slow starters to begin.

Watch the video to see this in practice.

Giving instructions and checking understanding

Watch this video of a teacher giving pupils short and clear instructions to complete a task, then in various ways checking that pupils have understood the instructions.

It is important that we tell pupils our behavioural expectations when they complete a task. This will mean our expectations are clear and pupils know what to do. Watch what the teacher says and does in giving their instructions.

Video script

NARRATION

Making sure that you are very clear in your instructions and about your expectations when it comes to behaviour is essential. Part of that is checking that pupils have understood your instructions.

You can do this by praising those who follow your instructions. And you can offer polite but firm reminders to pupils who do not follow your instructions.

Remember that in addition to what you say, non-verbal communication can be very effective. Holding a finger to your lips may be just as effective as telling people to be quiet.

CLASSROOM INTERACTION

We are going to look back at the persuasive leaflets we wrote in the last lesson and check that we have used all of the key features of persuasive texts.

Make a note of any features you have not used.

Select one feature that you have used effectively and write a sentence or two explaining why you think it is effective.

I want you to open your books and spend five minutes doing this in silence.

[Teacher scans the room to check who is following instructions]

Amar, I can see you have started already and so have several others – well done.

Holly, we are working in silence, thank you.

Tom… [Tom is standing up and teacher gestures with her arm for him to sit down and begin, which he does]

In your notepad

What does the teacher in the video say?
What does the teacher do?
How do they make their expectations clear?
What is the impact of this?

Teacher expectations can affect pupil outcomes

We know that our beliefs can be very influential. What you believe your pupils to be capable of achieving will directly influence what they actually achieve (Murdock-Perriera & Sedlacek, 2018). The Pygmalion or ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ research (Rosenthal et al.) in the 1960s showed that when teachers (but not their pupils) were told by researchers that a random group of their pupils had achieved high scores on an aptitude test, these pupils did better over the course of the year than the ‘ordinary’ pupils in their classes. In reality, the test was made up. Not knowing this, the teachers were shown to ask more questions, give more thinking time and provide more feedback to the pupils they believed to be more able. Clearly what you think of your pupils’ abilities and how you plan to meet their needs matters hugely. The higher the expectations you have of your pupils, the more you will push and challenge them and the more their outcomes will improve (Murdock-Perriera & Sedlacek, 2018).

It is important that you hold high expectations of all your pupils and convey these clearly and consistently through the challenge you provide for them. Show each individual pupil that you believe they can succeed. If you expect too little of a pupil, it is likely that they will be under-challenged and consequently not achieve as much.

Taking specific actions to ensure that you treat all pupils as individuals and showing them that you have high expectations of them is important. The list below shows some of the ways you can do this:

Give all pupils the same amount of time to answer questions.
Positively reinforce answers from all pupils.
Give all pupils the same opportunities to engage in the lesson.
Move seating plans around often and keep these purposeful.
Give pupils the same opportunities for feedback.

The way a pupil views their own ability will be affected by your expectations of them. Self-perceptions are often seen as precursors to motivation: if a child believes in their ability, they are likely to be more motivated and put forth greater effort, leading to improved performance (Education Endowment Foundation, 2019). We will see in future Blocks that part of this is giving children a chance to succeed and experience success.

This doesn’t mean that you should have low expectations. You should set learning goals that will challenge your pupils. They should have a level of difficulty that only makes them achievable with sustained effort. You can support your pupils to achieve these by demonstrating your high expectations of them; show pupils that you believe in them and their abilities. We can support and develop pupil attitude towards challenge (Willingham, 2009). Pupils must be encouraged to persevere, even when they find work challenging, as it is this process that will help them learn. The level of challenge will convey your high expectations to your pupils and when they achieve success in meeting those high expectations they will be motivated to work harder and strive to achieve further success (Chapman et al., 2013; Rathmann et al., 2018).