Strong Start 

TLAC Technique 46, page 356

A Strong Start is designing and establishing an efficient routine for students to enter    the classroom and begin work.

Ben Newmark's - How I Start A Lesson: https://bennewmark.wordpress.com/2021/05/04/how-i-start-a-lesson/

  • A Strong Start conveys the message that every lessons begins as soon as students walk through the door

The success of a lesson hinges on a Strong Start for three reasons:

  1. It sets the tone for everything that comes after. Classroom culture is not static and can change from day to day. It is shaped by the opening minutes of a lesson whether we intentionally engineer them or not so deliberately planning to start the lesson on a high note is a sound strategy

  1. From a pacing perspective, a strong, energetic start to a lesson builds momentum immediately. It makes a habit for students to work with discipline, urgency and efficiency as soon as they walk through the door. Get off to a slow start and you could find yourself spending the rest of the lesson fighting to rebuild momentum that was lost at the start!

  1. A Strong Start sets the scene for mastery by efficiently previewing or reviewing high quality content students need to master. It serves the overarching purpose of getting students thinking hard immediately, increasing expertise and their long-term memory.

It can be broken down into 4 separate parts:

  1. Threshold

  1. Door to Do Now

  1. Do Now

  1. Review Now

1) Threshold

  • Threshold is essentially 'meeting and greeting' your students and setting expectations before they enter the classroom

  • First impressions matter, not just on the first day of school, but every day and every lesson. This is why it is important to be strategic when planning your first interaction with each student and/or class.

  • How you choose to greet your students as they cross the threshold of your doorway helps establish expectations and sets the tone for the lesson.

  • With culture, getting it right and keeping it right, is much easier than fixing it when it goes wrong.

  • Threshold ensures that you make a habit of getting it right at the start of every lesson

Threshold Ideas

Ideally, you would greet your students by standing in the physical threshold of the classroom – astride the doorway.

This position allows you to:

  • Clearly see ‘both sides’ - the corridor and, with a quick swivel, the classroom so you can alternate easily between the two and manage both effectively. You can check that students who have entered the classroom have settled immediately into the ‘Do Now’ task (using Radar, Be Seen Looking and Least Invasive Interventions techniques) and ensure a calm and orderly entry in to the classroom from the corridor
  • Give clear ‘What to Do’ instructions to the students on what they need to do on entry: ‘Books and pencil case out and start the ‘Do Now’ work on the board immediately in the back of your book’, ‘Remember, we enter with ‘voices off’. Thank you’.
  • Narrate Positive starts: ‘Thanks for getting right to work, Dylan, a fantastic start’
  • Remind students of your expectations for the lesson – ‘100% effort’, ‘give me your best work’ delivered with warmth but with a splash of strictness if needed
  • Build rapport with students immediately: ‘Loved your homework, Sarah’, ‘I hope you have had a good day so far’, ‘looking for great things from you today, Jack’, ‘How did the hockey match go last night, Isabelle?’. You won’t be able to do this with every student, every lesson, but you can pick a few each lesson to positive relationships are built over the academic year.

  • Correct any minor issue quickly, without fuss, in the corridor/at the door. For example, incorrect/untidy uniform, students being giddy in the corridor can be settled with a Non-Verbal Intervention or a Lightning Quick Public Correction ensuring students are ready to learn as soon as they cross the threshold into your classroom.

Threshold will naturally take on a feel that corresponds to your own personality and style: it can be outgoing or quiet, warm or crisp... whatever fits best for you!

*Disclaimer*: Threshold is difficult to implement with teachers currently moving between  classrooms but might be possible after break/lunch or, indeed, if you are lucky enough to be in the same room for two lessons in a row!

2) Door to Do Now

Door to Do Now is about making a habit out of what’s efficient and productive as students take their seats.

A typical Door to Do Now routine might look like:

  1. Students pick up their books/Do Now work/lesson resources from a table just inside the door.

  1. Or, if you have your own classroom, these resources might already be on each desk before the students enter.

A couple of key points can maximise the effectiveness of your ‘Door to Do Now’ routine:

  • It is more efficient to have students pick up resources from a table than it is for you, the teacher, to hand them out at the door. The latter approach slows you down and forces you to multitask when your mind should be focused on setting expectations and building relationships as you meet and greet at the ‘Threshold’
  • Students should know where they sit. At WHS, use ClassCharts to have an accurate seating plan for every class. There may be slight changes over time due to a behaviour or student compatibility issue but the teacher needs 100% control over this process.

  • Homework – whatever students need to do with homework (put it in a tray, box, on a certain desk), they should do this in the same way every lesson without prompting.

  • The Do Now should be in the same place every day, too. This could be on the board or on paper but essentially it is in the same predictable place every time.

  • Narrate the Positive: show some appreciation for the productive behaviour you see and build momentum towards compliance. For example, “Thanks for getting right to work, Nathan” “Ella is already copying down today’s objective” etc. Discipline your narration so that it is precise and quietly reinforces industrious behaviour.

  • Once the opening procedure becomes routine, use narration with diminished frequency.

The goal is to get to the point where you need to say very little to set you Door to Do Now routine in motion.

3) Do Now (TLAC Technique 20, page 161)

  • The Do Now is a short warm-up activity that students can complete with minimal instruction or direction from the teacher to start the class every day

  • This lets learning start before you begin teaching.

  • It gives the teacher time to log on, complete the register, complete any last-minute lesson organisation (if needed) and also check for student understanding (CFU) by strategically circulating the room (when we are allowed to post-COVID)

  • At WHS, silent reading might form part of the ‘Do Now’ task but not all of it.

Four Key Components to a Do Now Task

1) The Do Now task should be in the same place every day so it becomes an easy habit for all of your students to start immediately. However you choose to present the Do Now task, keep it consistent.

2) Students should be able to complete the Do Now without any (or little) direction from the teacher, without any discussion with their classmates and, in most cases, without any other materials apart from the resources the teacher provides.

If Do Now work needs explaining in detail each time, it defeats the purpose of establishing a self-managed student habit of productive and independent work. Teachers might direct students to previous classwork notes if they need assistance with the Do Now work.

3) The activity should take three to five minutes to complete and should require students putting pen to paper.

There should be a written product from it. This makes it more rigorous and means the work completed is visible so that the teacher can both hold the students accountable for the quality of their work and, simultaneously, CFU. 

CFU allows the teacher to judge which questions to review and possibly which students to call on for a quality answer (Show Call or Cold Call) or a common mistake.

4) The activity should generally (a) preview the day’s lesson or (b) review a recent lesson or series of lessons/topics (retrieval practice)

A suitable layout might be a question from last lesson, last week, last half-term, last year. However, depending on the expertise and knowledge base of your class, you should carefully consider the material you are asking students to recall

Common Downfalls of Do Now Tasks

Losing track of time during the Do Now or when reviewing the Do Now. 

15 minutes later and the Do Now has replaced the lesson that was originally planned or, at least, it has pushed out some crucial independent practice time planned for the end of the lesson.

Ideally, the review of the Do Now should take the same amount of time that it took to complete it (3-5 minutes). 

Therefore, the review requires the teacher to selectively neglect some questions. You must choose the 2 or 3 questions that are most important or where the classes answers are most revealing.

This means CFU during the Do Now is crucial and knowing which students’ work to check to give you a strategic sample of the class’s mastery is key. 

You may want to carefully consider which students ae sat on your front rows in current ‘teaching from the front’ guidelines (maybe 2 x low attainers, 2 x mid-attainers and 2 x high attainers)

Managing the transition between the Do Now and review is important so a second of time is not wasted: 

“Ok class, pencils down when you hear the beep so we can analyse question 2”, “On the count of one, pens down and eyes up on me, 3, 2, 1.... (Perch, Radar, Be Seen Looking). Thank you everyone. James – describe the perfect method you used for question number 2 and explain why you used this method. Everyone track James”.

4) Review Now

The goal of Review Now is to come out of the Do Now as quickly and orderly as possible and with the kind of urgency that signals: ‘we’ve got a lot of important content to cover today, so let’s get started’

A transition into a Review Now might look like:

  1. The teacher using a timer for the Do Now so they stick to the time limit precisely. This can be displayed on the board or as part of your PowerPoint or Slides. Or, use your phone as s simple alternative

  1. Sticking to the time says to students that the teacher values the Review Now time

  1. As the time goes off, or, just before, the teacher can give a concise, observable direction: ‘Pens down and tracking me in 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1’.

  1. This short countdown adds productive urgency to the instruction but also gives time for students to finish their last bit of writing and comply with the teacher’s direction.

  1. This is where Radar/Swivel, Perch, Been Seen Looking, Making Compliance Visible and Least Invasive Intervention techniques can be used to ensure 100% student follow through very quickly.

  1. A lightning quick transition into asking students questions makes the start of the Review Now pop crisply with energy

  1. Students could potentially disengage during the Review Now. To counter this, you can place a strong emphasis on accountability by Cold Calling students (not taking hands). This will keep students on their toes and will push them to actively track any class discussion. You can combine Cold Calling with a Show Call (for exemplar responses) and/or a Show Me (a great technique for gathering data on student mastery).

  1. The teacher can use a timer for the Review Now as well to ensure it does not spill over into the main lesson. When the timer goes off, this is the cue for the teacher to wrap up the final problem and dive into the main lesson seamlessly (students already have the required resources, teacher’s opening slide is immediately projected on the board etc...) so a second is not wasted in this tight transition.

Videos

TLAC Field Guide Clip 49: Strong Start - Do Now/Review Now Compilation

TLAC Field Guide Clip 50: Strong Start: Door to Do Now, Do Now, Review Now