Marnie Ginsberg

Habit Assemblies: Accelerating culture for learning The more complex a school, the more attention and effort is required just to maintain it… attention and effort that could (should) be going into improving learning. Ruthless simplicity (doing fewer things) and collective alignment (doing those things the same way) are two powerful levers for reducing this complexity. Most schools pursue collective alignment by focussing on teachers... practising agreed routines and norms together, then implementing them back in classrooms. This is great... BUT, the schools that do it best go one step further. They also practise with students. All together. At once. A kind of *habit assembly* Imagine 200 year 7s in the hall, all practising how to turn-and-talk. How to answer questions. How to treat others with respect. How to sit and act in ways that optimise attention. Without this, we have to build culture from scratch, in isolation, 30 students at a time. With habit assemblies, students arrive in our classrooms already primed. We just need to stick to the plan. The rationale for this is social norms. Our behaviour is shaped less by what we're told to do and more by what we see others doing. In a habit assembly, every student sees every other student doing the same thing. They don't just learn the routine... they internalise the norm… this is how we do things around here. And culture compounds: once routines are internalised, each lesson reinforces the norm, which makes the next assembly even stronger. Most schools already have the time for this. Existing assembly slots or collapsed tutor/form time can be repurposed without adding to the timetable. Of course, this only works if it's done with students, not to them. Roll it out heavy-handedly or without buy-in and things'll backfire fast. The more we build habits together, the stronger the culture we end up with. PS. Video of habit assemblies in action coming soon...

Don't hold up reading instruction because a kid can't spell the words yet. Reading is multiple choice. Spelling is fill-in-the-blank. Of course it takes longer! Let reading lead. 🏇 Learn more. 👇🏾