The application of rules is different to their communication.

The latter concerns explanation, the former concerns use.

If your learners follow all your rules from the get-go, you will probably not have to apply them.

Simply communicating them will have been sufficient.

However, if rules are pushed against, transgressed or broken, then application comes into play.

When we talk of applying a rule, we mean looking at a given situation and judging whether the rule has indeed been broken.

If it has, we need to assess the extent of that breakage and then consider what the consequences should be for the individual or individuals in question.

If there is no consequence, the rule loses some (possibly most) of its force.

The question becomes, in the minds of learners, why bother following the rule if there are no consequences for not doing so?

If the consequences are too severe, the relationship you have with your learners will deteriorate.

You may also lose some authority and face challenges.

These challenges will likely be predicated on a sense of injustice, with learners arguing, sometimes rightly, that the consequences are disproportionate to the transgressions.

Humans have a strong, in-built sense of fairness.

Disproportionate sanctions can easily run up against this, creating negative responses and damaging rapport.

Finally, if consequences are inconsistent, you will face the biggest problems.

This will undermine the purpose of the rules.

Learners will come to see their use as arbitrary; dependent on your whims and preferences (whether this is true or not) instead of reason, principle and precedent.

If all this sounds a somewhat highbrow description of how learners think I would urge caution.

From an early age we develop a sense of fairness and justice.

This is acute in children and young people whose conceptual development is such that the world appears more black and white than it does to us as adults.

This leads to the conclusion that you should think carefully about how you apply your rules.

Consistency is of utmost importance, followed by proportionality.

The aim is to further support how rules work to regulate behaviour by regulating learner expectations of what will happen if rules are broken.

This means learners can predict with good accuracy what will happen if a transgression occurs.

A good way of helping learners to see rules positively – and to understand why they need to be applied – is to develop rules in conjunction with your learners.

This also promotes a sense of agency and binds learners into the rules that they helped create.

Here are two techniques you can use to develop rules with your class.

Technique One

Divide the class into groups of three or four.

Give each group a sheet of sugar paper.

Display a silhouette of a person on the board and ask learners to draw their own version in the centre of their sheets.

Next, explain that groups have five minutes to annotate their images with the characteristics of an outstanding learner.

You might like to give some specific examples to get learners started and/or to display a set of categories on the board on which they can base their annotations.

When the time is up, pair groups together and get them to compare their ‘outstanding learners.’

From here, you can move into a discussion in which the whole class agrees on their definition of an outstanding learner, with this then forming the basis of the class rules.

Everyone’s subsequent aim is to meet or exceed the characteristics through what they do, what they say and how they act.

Technique Two

Divide the class into pairs and display a selection of rules on the board which you think will help to create a positive learning environment.

Invite pairs to discuss the rules.

They should first decide whether they agree with them and what sort of behaviour they think they will give rise to.

Next, ask learners to come up with any rules of their own that aren’t on the board but which they think are particularly important.

Finally, challenge pairs to narrow down the rules to the five they think are most important for creating the right classroom culture. Indicate that learners will need to justify their choices.

When sufficient time has passed, ask pairs to get into groups of four or six.

In these new groups, learners should share and debate their decisions before agreeing on five rules between them.

Next, ask learners to get into larger groups, so that the class is roughly divided into two equal halves.

Each half should repeat the process of sharing and discussing rules before deciding on an agreed set of five.

This results in two large groups of learners, each possessing a set of five rules.

Ask each group to appoint a spokesperson.

These learners take it in turns to read out the rules on which their group has agreed.

You should then facilitate a debate between the two groups. The aim is to merge the two lists into a final set of five rules.

These then become the golden rules of the classroom that all learners must subsequently seek to meet.

Both techniques engage learners in the process of rule creation.

In so doing, they help them to think about what good behaviour looks and feels like, as well as the foundations on which it rests.

In addition, when you refer to the rules later, you can do so while referring to their origins and the role everyone played in their creation.

This is a powerful point through which to reinforce the social commitments learners have to each other as members of the class.