How To Manage Classroom Behavior During Assemblies

Are you able to relax and enjoy school assemblies, or do you sit nervously, hoping your students will behave?

Does it drive you crazy when they chat with each other, act silly, or rise up and block the view of the students behind them?

Do you find yourself exasperated and straining to get their attention–stepping over students, tapping on shoulders, glaring, shushing, sighing?

Do you ever get embarrassed in front of your colleagues? Do you wonder what your principal thinks?

You’re not alone.

Managing behavior during school assemblies can be a challenge.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Three Simple Steps

Use the following three steps, and start enjoying school assemblies rather than dreading them.

Step One: Model how you want your students to behave.

Sit down on the carpet in your classroom, and invite a couple of student helpers to sit down next to you. Gather the rest of your class around in a semicircle to observe.

Now pretend the three of you are sitting in an assembly.

Model for your class precisely how you expect them to behave. Include how to sit, how to be attentive, how to clap and cheer, and how to be respectful to those sitting nearby. Add commentary along the way.

Keep it simple, but make your modeling highly detailed, even exaggerated. This is key to its effectiveness.

Step Two: Model how not to behave.

While still sitting on the carpet with your students gathered around, model how not to behave. Let your students see the exact behaviors you don’t allow during a school assembly.

It’s okay to ham it up and have fun with it. The more over-the-top the modeling is, the more effective it will be.

Your students will laugh in recognition as you model rising up on your knees, bothering those around you, daydreaming, fiddling with your shoes, being silly, talking, or any other behaviors you don’t want.

When students are able to experience, in a highly detailed way, the absurdity and rudeness of their behavior, the lesson will hit home. It also sets up the final and most important step.

Step Three: Bring your classroom management plan with you.

Your classroom management plan should follow you wherever you go, including school assemblies. Take a clipboard with you to the assembly and take note of any behavior that breaks your class rules.

Assuming one of your rules is follow directions, any behavior you defined as unacceptable (in steps one and two) would trigger a consequence. Only, it’s best not to enforce the consequence on the spot. Instead, wait until you return to the classroom before following through.

If you’ve faithfully followed steps one and two, you’ll notice your students looking up at you often during the assembly–checking in to see how they’re doing. When they do, just nod and smile.

If you notice misbehavior, however, make eye contact and give the offending student a simple hand signal. Hold three fingers up (W) for a warning and tap the palm of one hand atop the fingers of the other (like a coach calling time-out) for a time-out. It’s best to model these during step two.

If the misbehaving student never checks in, never makes eye contact with you, so be it. No big deal. They’ll find out about the consequence waiting for them when they get back to class.

Relax

By being clear with what you expect from your students–through detailed modeling–and then holding them accountable, you’ll have few behavior problems during assemblies in the future.

Your students will sit relaxed and polite, enjoying the show, comfortable within your boundary lines of expected behavior.

So while the teacher next to you is waving his arms and trying to pantomime what he so desperately wants to say to the chatty group of students seven rows away…

You can breathe easy in knowing that the clipboard you’re carrying does your speaking for you.

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