Calm. Clear. Consistent.
Building School Culture Through Everyday Routines.
In every school, students deserve a calm, safe and consistent environment in which to learn in. As Sam Strickland said, ‘behaviour is the bedrock of any school’. Behaviour is not an add on. It is not the responsibility of one team or one policy. Behaviour is the curriculum.
I am a practitioner who has previously served as Head of Year and DSL, and now leads on Teaching and Learning as an Assistant Principal, I’ve learned that a calm, purposeful school culture isn’t built through firefighting. It stems from clarity, consistency, and coaching, and it begins with the adults. This is a brief blog on some of the initiatives and examples I have shared in presentations throughout the past year. This is all dependent on the school context.
Behaviour Is Taught, Not Told
Too often, we assume students ‘should know how to behave.’ But behaviour is a skill, a taught, modelled, and practised one. As Tom Bennett reminds us: ‘Being well-behaved is not an accident of birth. If students haven’t been taught how to behave, we must teach them.’ This is why routines matter. Not because we want robotic classrooms but because we want freedom through structure.
The Power of Embedded Routines
Strong routines remove ambiguity. They create time for learning. They allow every student to feel safe, included, and clear on what success looks like.
Some of our most effective routines inspired by Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov include:
Threshold greetings. Every lesson begins at the door, where students are greeted and reminded of expectations. It sets the tone before the learning even begins.
Entry and exit routines. From how we line up to how we hand out books, every moment can be smooth, calm, and predictable.
Do Now Activity. Students begin work as soon as they enter. Whether it's retrieval, review, or a short fluency task, the routine of starting in silence helps build focus and ensures that no learning time is wasted. It signals that we learn from the first minute.
Crucially, these routines don’t end at the classroom door.
Routines Beyond the Classroom
CPD within any school explicitly equips staff with what to do in common scenarios. The following points are questions for leaders to reflect on and consider how well their staff members are supported.
On duty: What does ‘calm presence’ look like? What’s the shared language for addressing uniform or lateness?
Transitions. How do we signal movement between spaces? Who leads the line? Is there a line? What happens if behaviour slips en route to lessons?
Persistent disruption. What’s the sequence of correction? What’s the consequence? When and how do we involve leaders?
Rather than leaving this to instinct or ‘personality,’ we rehearse it. We script it. We normalise it because every inconsistency is a missed opportunity to embed the culture we want to see.
CPD That Prepares Staff and Protects Them
One of the most important duties is to protect teacher attention. Staff should be free to teach, not firefight. That means front-loading routines and responses, using CPD to equip staff with the confidence and clarity they need.
From walkthroughs to deliberate practice, our message is clear: we don’t expect perfection, but we do expect shared standards. Because when adults are consistent, students feel safe. When routines are embedded, behaviour improves. And when classrooms are calm, learning thrives.
Reflection
I carry the lens of my pastoral past into every leadership decision I make. Teaching and Learning cannot be separated from behaviour. It is the precondition, not the interruption. The foundation, not the footnote.
Culture is not created by chance. It is created every day, in every corridor, by every adult.
And that culture?
That is the curriculum.
References and further reading
Building Culture by Lekha Sharma
Headstrong By Dame Sally Coates
Motivated Teaching by Peps McCrea
Rosenshine’s Principles In Action by Tom Sherrington
Running The Room by Tom Bennett
Teach Like A Champion 2.0 by Doug Lemov
The Behaviour Manual: An Educator’s Guidebook by Sam Strickland