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Routines & Lesson Systems

Rehearse the Routine

Teach a routine the way you teach content, and practise it warmly until it runs itself

Use this when

Ratings loading…Teacher craft

What is it?

Rehearse the Routine means teaching a classroom procedure as deliberately as you would teach content: identify the exact actions, model them, then have the class practise until they can complete the whole routine from one short cue. A routine is a skill, and skills become automatic through practice rather than repeated instructions. Many problems with routines are not defiance; students may not fully understand what a routine requires until they have performed it.

The steps

  1. Choose one routine and list its actions. Start with the routine that costs the most time: entering, giving out books, moving into groups or packing away. List what students should do, in order, as three to five actions. Phrase each one as something you could see from the back of the room, such as "stand behind your chair, bag closed, facing the front" (see What-To-Do Directions).
  2. Teach it before you need it. Give the routine a name and explain in one sentence why it matters. Then model it slowly while the class watches.
    This is how we hand books in. Watch me do it once, then everyone gets a turn.
    With older students, a quick demonstration by a volunteer can work as well as doing it yourself.
  3. Practise it straight away. Have the whole class perform the routine once, in real time, while you watch. Let them finish without interrupting. The first attempt shows you which action needs to be taught again.
  4. Redo it warmly when it is scrappy. Treat a scrappy attempt like a wrong answer in maths: it deserves another try, with one thing to improve. Name that improvement, keep your tone positive and run the routine again.
    Good start. We can be quicker. Back to the line. This time, chairs stay silent. Off we go.
    Praise the second attempt for the specific improvement you saw.
  5. Attach a cue and hand the routine over. Choose one short signal that starts the routine every time: a phrase, a countdown or the task appearing on the board. After that, give the cue and let students complete the routine. If you find yourself explaining the steps again, schedule another rehearsal.
  6. Rehearse again when it frays. Routines often slip after holidays or timetable disruptions. If a routine has been inconsistent for a few days, run one upbeat two-minute rehearsal at the start of the next lesson. This can restore it more quickly than a week of reminders.

What it looks like

In the classroom

On the second morning of term, Ms Keane's class of 9-year-olds lines up outside the door again before maths. "Watch me first." She walks in, slides an imaginary bag under a table, sits and mimes writing the date. The class giggles. "Four things: in, bag under, sit, write the date. Off you go."

The first attempt is scrappy: two boys race for the same chair and knock it over. "Nearly. Back to the line. This time the only chair you touch is your own." Amara groans: "We already did it." "We did. Now we do it well." The second attempt takes forty seconds and nothing falls over. "That's the one. That's us, every morning." By October, she can stand at the door greeting the queue while the class completes the routine behind her.

How you’ll know it’s working

  • You give the cue and nothing else. The class completes the routine without a spoken list of reminders from you.
  • Time it weekly: an entry or transition that took four minutes in the first week can fall to about a minute within a month and remain close to that time.
  • Redos should become less frequent: perhaps daily in the first week, then once or twice a week, then hardly at all. If the number rises again, it is time to rehearse the routine again.
  • A student who joins mid-term can often learn the routine within days by following the rest of the class, with little separate explanation from you.

Pitfalls & fixes

  • Announcing instead of teaching. Describing a routine on a slide only announces it. Students may not fully learn it from an explanation alone, so model and practise the routine on the day you introduce it.
  • The redo turns cold. Said through gritted teeth, "again" becomes a punishment, and the class notices the difference immediately. If you hear irritation in your own voice, speak privately to the one student involved and save the whole-class rehearsal for tomorrow.
  • Redoing without a target. Saying "again" without guidance simply repeats the same problems. Identify the one thing students should improve on the next attempt, so everyone knows what to change.
  • Teaching five routines in week one. They can blur together, making each one less likely to become automatic. Teach the entry first, add the attention signal a few days later and let each routine become established before introducing the next.

Weigh it up

Why it’s worth it

  • It recovers substantial time. Cutting one daily transition from four minutes to one returns roughly ten hours of teaching across a year, and most classes have more than one slow transition.
  • Low-level disruption falls because much of it begins during unstructured moments. A rehearsed routine leaves fewer opportunities for it to take hold.
  • It frees attention for teaching. Once the routine becomes automatic, you and your students can devote more working memory to the content rather than the logistics.
  • It makes other techniques easier to use. Do Now, Show-Me Boards and Turn & Talk all depend on processes the class already knows, so rehearsing those processes can help students use the techniques confidently in days rather than weeks.
  • It gives the class an early shared success. Students who beat their own entry record in week two have achieved something together before any of them has been tested on anything.

The costs

  • It uses lesson time when you may feel least able to spare it. The first weeks with a new class involve several rehearsals, while the benefit comes later.
  • A redo can feel like a drill if your tone becomes flat. Delivered with irritation, it tells students that the routine is about your authority, and remaining genuinely warm through a third attempt takes real self-control.
  • It is never completely finished. Holidays and room changes often require another rehearsal, while some new arrivals may need explicit support. A routine that is not maintained can slip within weeks.
Worth it when
the first ten minutes are chaotic, transitions repeatedly cost time, instructions need to be given three times, or routines that worked in September have slipped by November.
Think twice when
an established class has routines that mostly work: re-teach the one that is failing rather than starting from scratch. With older students close to exams, a brief reminder will usually do the work of a full rehearsal.

Adaptations

  • Early years: most settings already teach routines through songs and repetition. Be precise: keep each action physical and visible, and practise the routine as a game that begins when you say its name.
  • Primary: beat-the-clock works well. Time the routine and let the class try to beat its own record; use the class's previous best rather than another class's as the target, so the competition remains friendly.
  • Secondary / post-16: keep rehearsal brief and age-appropriate. Explain the reason once, walk through the routine once and use the redo sparingly. With 17-year-olds, a calm "let's have that entry again, properly this time" delivered without ceremony may feel more appropriate than a full drill.
  • Practical subjects: the fullest version is particularly useful in workshops and labs. Safety routines, such as the stop signal or clearing equipment away, justify rehearsal in the first lesson and a redo every single time they begin to slip.

Where this comes from

Teacher craft

Explicitly teaching routines is long-standing professional wisdom, reflected in classroom-management research since Jacob Kounin's observational studies in 1970 and in the EEF's behaviour guidance, which recommends teaching and practising classroom routines. Doug Lemov codified the redo element as "Do It Again" in Teach Like a Champion. No trial has tested the full name-model-practise-redo format on its own, so this page is graded as teacher craft.

Sources
Promisingthe EEF's Improving Behaviour in Schools guidance recommends teaching learning behaviours and routines rather than assuming students already have them. The guidance is based on an evidence review, but the rehearsal format itself has not been trialled.
CraftDoug Lemov's "Do It Again" is a positive practise-it-again technique for establishing routines in the first week, developed from observations of effective classrooms.

Related techniques

What-To-Do Directionsprovides the language used in step 1: each action is phrased so it can be seen and performed.Do Nowusually the first routine worth rehearsing; it becomes self-starting only once the class has practised beginning it.Threshold Greetingsupported by a reliable entry routine, which allows you to remain at the door.The Attention Signala short routine to rehearse second, once the entry is established.Tight Transitionsapplies the same principle between activities, where you are likely to rehearse routines most often.
classtested.com/techniques/rehearse-the-routine — steps, signs it’s working, and trade-offs on one page. Ratings and discussion online.

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