Imagine a day in your students’ lives, going from class to class, teacher to teacher, and rule set to rule set like it’s a bizarre game of “Guess Who?” but with expectations. Can you chew gum here? Can you go to the bathroom without a signed scroll and a security escort? Is talking during group work encouraged or grounds for getting in trouble?
Overwhelming, right? So clearly, it’s important to establish rules in your classroom for how students should behave. There are two main camps of teachers when it comes to reviewing rules at the beginning of the year:
- The teacher creates the rules and tells the students without their input.
- The class creates a social contract by stating vague statements they’ve heard before.
To be honest, I don’t really love either of those options! As a middle ground, I started using “Community Expectations” in my classroom a few years ago. I wanted to maintain some level of control over our class rules, but also wanted my students to have a say and feel accountable towards making our classroom a productive and safe place to be.
The main difference between community expectations and a social contract is that the conversation is broken down into more specific topics. Instead of “How do you want to be treated by your classmates?” I ask students to think about how we can take care of our space or allow others to learn. We get really specific about what that looks and sounds like.
Setting Up Your Community Expectations in the Classroom
To set the stage, I always take the time to define the words “community” and “expectations”. I define community as a group of people who share a space, responsibilities, and goals. We talk about the fact that we, as a class, are a community; therefore, we depend on each other – whether we like it or not! We then define expectations as an understanding or belief that something will happen. Because we are a community, we have expectations of each other – we need to believe that our classmates will act a certain way to allow us to learn.
Once we’ve laid that groundwork, we dive into defining our expectations together. But I don’t just toss a marker at a kid and say, “What should we do?”—because we all know that leads to answers like “more recess” or “don’t give homework.”
Instead, we look at a few key areas of classroom life, and I guide students through some structured questions:
- How can we take care of our classroom space?
- What does it look like when you try your best?
- What can you do to allow others to learn?
- How can we keep ourselves and others safe?
- What should it look like when we take care of our space?
By keeping the questions focused, we avoid vague statements like “be nice” and get to more specific things like “put supplies back where they go” or “give people wait time before jumping in.”
Then, we compile our answers into a clean list of shared agreements—our Community Expectations—that gets posted, signed by each class, and referred to all year long!
Why It Works:
Here’s why this approach works better:
It clearly gets to the “why” of classroom rules.
Students feel heard, respected, and like they have a stake in the expectations they are asked to meet.
It’s structured enough to lead to a productive and clear conversation – not just vague statements that don’t really make sense.
It gives students a way to hold each other (and themselves!) more accountable for meeting these expectations – they aren’t just mine to enforce!
And most importantly? They treat the classroom as our space—not just mine. That subtle shift in ownership can completely change the vibe of your year.
Want to Try This Without Reinventing the Wheel?
I put together a resource with everything I use to launch community expectations at the start of the year—detailed directions, discussion prompts, student templates, and editable display templates! If you’re looking for something that gives students voice without giving up all structure, this is it.
Check it out here!
Your students are juggling a dozen different expectations every day. Giving them a voice in your classroom’s expectations not only helps them understand the “why”, but also empowers them to help uphold the “how.”
So skip the vague contracts and the top-down rule lists—meet in the middle with something that’s structured, collaborative, and built to last beyond the first week of school.
