How to Set Classroom Expectations to Improve Student Behavior

One of the best ways to help students meet rigorous academic expectations is to first set high expectations for behavior. With clear and consistent classroom expectations, students: 

• Know and understand what’s expected of them, building confidence as they meet standards  
• Have agency to monitor their own behavior, taking responsibility for their learning 
• Spend more time on-task, increasing academic learning time  

• Gain a sense of security, establishing a stable and safe learning environment 

With clear expectations, teachers can more easily recognize and motivate positive behaviors while building a positive classroom culture, which in turn builds a positive school climate.  

In classrooms where behaviors vary day to day or minute to minute, teachers lose precious instructional time when they must address disruptive behavior. When that disruptive behavior is chronic, lost instructional time may add up to content gaps for students. More worrisome is that, in an environment that’s disorderly or chaotic—or worse, unsafe—students are less likely to ask questions, engage in discussion, and take academic risks. While discipline referrals or suspensions have been used as a consequence of inappropriate behavior, those “solutions” create more problems when struggling learners miss class time because of their classroom conduct.  

What are classroom behavior expectations?  

Behavior expectations are procedures and rules that students learn to encourage positive behaviors and prevent problem behaviors. They form important building blocks for a positive school culture. 

These expectations can outline how students treat each other and the teacher, and how they operate in the classroom. They can also address how students behave outside of the classroom, such as in the cafeteria, playground, quad, library, hallways, restrooms, or bus. 

Why Classroom Behavior Expectations Lead to Student Success  

For maximum benefit, behavior expectations should be consistent from classroom to classroom and teacher to teacher. With consistent expectations, students know what’s expected of them throughout the school day. This allows them to feel more confident, engaged, and connected to the school community. It also makes it easier for teachers to recognize positive behaviors, correct problem behaviors, and keep small problems small. 

Further, for students who may have difficult home lives, this consistency and routine can provide the structure and stability they need and crave. In addition, it’s particularly helpful with students who like to test boundaries or “divide and conquer” staff members. If all staff members are on the same page—consistently communicating and reinforcing established school-wide behavior expectations—students quickly realize there’s no point to pushing the limits because the consequences are always the same. 

Another benefit is that consistent expectations can help diffuse emotionally heated situations. Since the teacher and the student (and parent) are already aware of the behavior expectation, they can swiftly move to addressing the problem behavior rather than arguing over what the student did wrong. 

5 Tips for Setting Behavior Expectations

1. Define your behavior expectations, along with rewards and consequences

Invite key stakeholders from across your school, including the students, to create your behavior expectations. Each desired behavior should be observable, measurable, objective, and specific. Defining behaviors in this way also makes it much easier to model them for students, so they can see concrete examples of what they’re expected to do. 

Next, establish a reward system for recognizing students who achieve these expectations, and establish consequences for expectations that are not met. Like the expectations, the rewards and consequences should be age-appropriate and consistent. 

Share these expectations and get buy-in from all educators and staff members to ensure consistent, equitable enforcement.  

2. Clearly communicate your behavior expectations to students and families

The best way to communicate your behavior expectations is to put them in writing, either in a hard copy handout or posted to the student LMS and parent portal. If the behavior expectations are school-wide, you can print them in the handbook and on the school website.

In the classroom, post them in large print on the classroom walls as a visual reminder to students. If possible, post the expectations in the same place where the expected behavior occurs. For example, expectations for behavior in the cafeteria should be posted in a place where every student entering the space sees them.  

3. Show students what meeting behavior expectations looks like

To ensure students understand the behavior expectations, show them in action. Demonstrate what it looks like when a student is meeting the expectation. To make this a little more fun, you could invite students to perform skits displaying appropriate and inappropriate behavior, followed up by a group discussion about what behavior is acceptable and what behavior isn’t.  

4. Track student behavior daily

With PowerSchool Behavior Support, you can easily collect, access, analyze, share, and act on behavioral data in real time. With behavior management tools such as one-click behavior tracking, you can track the positive behaviors that make up your ideal school culture, as well as note inappropriate or negative behaviors from students.

In addition, you can motivate positive behaviors with goal-based incentives or rewards—such as behavior points, scholar dollars, student paychecks, or school store rewards—which are automatically tracked in Behavior Support. Teachers can help each other, too, with one-click tools for behavior-specific notes, teacher-to-teacher comments, sharable dashboards, and room for reflection on student reports. 

5. Review and reinforce expectations throughout the year

Invite students into these conversations, as well. When students feel that the entire community is working toward a shared goal, they are more likely to be invested in its success.  

Clear, consistent behavior expectations, combined with real-time data tracking, are key components to building a safe, happy school where students and staff thrive. When students feel confident, respected, cared for, and supported, disruptions and discipline incidents decline, learning increases, and academic achievement rises.