A single side of A4 that welcomes them to English by name, introduces myself as their teacher, and lists a couple of the books I read over summer, with brief synopsis. This gives them something to do, but also sets the expectation this is a class where reading matters. /4

Once everyone is seated, I’ll begin the bulk of the lesson which is going to be introducing and rehearsing some of the routines/expectations they will encounter over the course of the class. No games or ice breakers, but an introduction to the culture and norms of the class. /5

I don’t go through every routine they would need to know as I don’t want to overload them, but I do cover the most important. For each routine, I explain what it is, why we do it that way, model if necessary, and then we physically and explicitly rehearse until it’s perfect /6

The main routines I tend to cover are:

1) How to enter the class and what to expect (do now task)
2) Clapping twice = silence and attention on me
3) Think/pair/share
4) Cold call
5) Retrieval (what I mean by this and why we do it)
6) How we end the lesson

/7

There are other routines and expectations, but I’ll cover these when more directly relevant. EG: homework, feedback, monthly review, annotating a text and taking notes, etc. I dont talk about behaviour specifically because my expectations are the school expectations /8

Once I’ve introduced and we’ve rehearsed these core routines, I’ll hand out their exercise books. I have a specific way I’d like these set out (with an index at the front and right side margin where I place QR codes for verbal feedback) so we do this together and I model. /9

I find this tends to take us to the end of the lesson, but if not I’ll take them through the course outline in brief. If it has taken us to the end, I’ll cover the outline at the start of next lesson. We’ll then begin with the first text we study, whatever that might be.

END