Making the Most of Classroom Jobs in Your Elementary Classroom [episode 166]

Emily  0:37

Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we’re talking all about class jobs and sharing a way to help your job chart adapt to your class needs.

Heidi  0:49

We start our episodes with a morning message, just like we used to do at morning meeting in our classrooms. This week’s morning message is, what are your biggest headaches or best tips for classroom jobs?

Emily  1:00

And we asked our community this question and got some really great responses. So we’re going to skip talking about it right now and share their tips throughout the episode.

Heidi  1:09

Before we dive in, we want to share this review from listener Deanna H. She says, I love this podcast. It’s not too long, and the simple tips are quick and easy to implement right away in my classroom. Thank you.

Emily  1:23

Oh, thanks so much, Deanna. It’s so great to hear what’s helpful about our podcast. Deanna, if you’re listening, please send us an email at [email protected], so we can send you a little thank you.

Heidi  1:35

And if you haven’t rated or reviewed our podcast yet, would you consider taking a few seconds of doing that now? Five star ratings and current reviews tell new listeners that this is a show we’re checking out, and that would be a big help to us.

Heidi  1:51

As you can probably guess, today we are talking about all the ups and downs that come with class jobs.

Emily  1:56

And unlike a lot of the aspects of running a classroom, when it comes to class jobs, we don’t have to adapt our preferences to fit research. We can just do what works best for us and our students.

Heidi  2:07

Yeah, it is so rare to have a part of teaching that doesn’t have to align with a huge body of research or require progress monitoring or data or detailed plans you have to turn into your principle. For the most part, you can just do what you want with class jobs.

Emily  2:23

Although there are probably some principles out there with lots of expectations about how class jobs should be managed. Let’s be honest. If you’re at a school like that, you have our apologies, but for the rest of us, it comes down to personal preference.

Heidi  2:37

And because class jobs are personal preference, the most important rule is, do what works for you. Do you want to assign one helper for the day and have that person do all of your jobs? Great. Do you want to have a new job for each student every day? Great. Don’t feel like one system is better than the other. It really all comes down to what works for you.

Emily  2:59

Class jobs are meant to make your life easier. If they’re not change your system or drop class jobs altogether. There are so many parts of teaching that you must do, whether you want to or not, class jobs are not one of those. So don’t let something optional add to your list of headaches.

Heidi  3:15

However, if class jobs could make your class run more smoothly, but right now they’re not keep listening, because we have got lots of tips and tricks to help you troubleshoot your system. So let’s start by figuring out exactly what you need.

Emily  3:31

We have a resource of guiding questions for procedures and routines to help you pinpoint exactly what you need your classroom procedures to do, and what your students need to do to complete those procedures. And this resource includes 20 questions to help you clarify what you want from your class jobs, and you can find a link to that resource in the show notes.

Heidi  3:51

Teachers have to make so many decisions that a lot of times, we just default to what we’ve seen other teachers do without considering if that decision is actually the best option for our situation. So let’s take a minute to reflect on some of these questions about class jobs.

Emily  4:09

First step, do you want to have class jobs? If the answer to that question is no, then that makes the rest of this discussion pretty easy. Don’t have class jobs. But I’m betting a lot of you do want class jobs, so let’s keep going.

Heidi  4:26

Oh, all right. Well, then the next question is, what classroom tasks can you assign to students? There are two levels to consider here.

Heidi  4:35

First, there are the tasks that are actually helpful to you. For example, when I taught second grade students were given a book to take home each night. We called it, cleverly enough, a take home book. So keeping track of all of those take home books was handled by the wonderful, wonderful secretaries in the front office, amazing women. I love them all.

Heidi  4:55

But that meant that we did have to return our box of books to the office each morning so they. Swap out the books now, right? I can’t leave my class go running the books up to the office, so obviously, I just made it a class job. That was a task my students could do that was genuinely helpful for me.

Emily  5:11

Some of the other helpful tasks might be passing papers, straightening the class library, getting scraps off the floor, updating the calendar, squirting sanitizer on hands after recess or before lunch, charging devices, cleaning the whiteboard, taking the recycling bin to the larger school recycling, sharpening pencils, watering plants, repeating directions to the class after you’ve said them, answering the class phone, turning off the lights, resetting the attendance chart and any other helpful tasks that kids can do.

Heidi  5:45

Well, that’s hardly scratching the surface. Kids really can do so much to help the day run smoothly. They can hold doors, stack chairs, gather work for absent students, carry messages, wipe down desks, check out recess equipment, make sure the expo markers all have their dumb little lids, lead the pledge, check cubbies, hold doors and so much more.

Heidi  6:07

Because our students can do these things, we should expect them to do these things. We want students to understand that we all contribute to our community.

Emily  6:16

But there’s another level of task that students are capable of doing, even if those tasks are not the most helpful. For example, a job like brain break chooser. That student’s job is to choose the day’s brain break. This is a task a student can do, but is it actually helping the teacher? Probably not. By the time you remind the kid to pick and give them all the options to choose from, you could have chosen one for the class and been halfway done with it already.

Heidi  6:42

Now the distinction between these two types of jobs is important, because if you’re finding that class jobs are more hassle than helpful, it might be because you are outsourcing tasks to your students that aren’t actually making your job easier and maybe making your job a little harder.

Emily  6:58

Right. It might sound fun to have a daily joke teller, class poet or photographer, but if you don’t really need those jobs done, you’re just inventing work for yourself and for your students.

Heidi  7:10

When I was a new teacher, I definitely had class jobs that fell in this category. I had a greeter whose job it was to welcome visitors to the class, and I had a class historian who was supposed to write a few sentences about what we did that week in our class journal. Like both of those sound like great ideas, but neither of those jobs was helpful to me.

Heidi  7:30

Because those events really weren’t part of the daily routine. I had the responsibility of remembering that they needed to be done right? So when someone came to the classroom, I had to stop check the chart, remind that student to greet the person, and then remind them how to greet the person, because they didn’t really know. It was just easier for me to greet the person myself, and then the whole class journal thing just turned into pages of we learned a lot. We had fun. So I just mix that real quick.

Emily  7:59

Yep. If you have a system where each student has a job every day, you’re probably going to have several student jobs that are particularly helpful to you. Does that matter to you? If it’s important to you that everyone has a responsibility each day, then it’s worth it to manage those less than helpful jobs. If daily jobs for each kid don’t matter to you, then you can streamline the responsibilities to what’s most useful.

Heidi  8:24

I was definitely not a one job per kid type teacher. In my second grade class, I had five jobs, but three of those jobs required two kids, so eight kids had jobs each week, so that might be about a third of the class. And I’m not sharing this, because I think that what I did was the best way. But I’m hoping that by sharing some of the thought process behind how I structured my jobs, it can spark some ideas for how you can tweak your own system.

Heidi  8:51

So each of my class jobs had multiple responsibilities during the day, so I just kind of gave the jobs random names. So back when Emily and I had pirate themes. I had two kids who were the class swabbers. They carried our lunch tote back and forth and tidied the room at the end of the day. But, you know, in the years, I didn’t have a theme, the job was just called something like classroom upkeep or something generic.

Heidi  9:14

My job chart was just library pockets on the wall. I had each student’s name on an index card, and at the end of the week, everyone moved to the next position on the chart. The person at the end rotated out, and then I just put a new student into the first slot.

Emily  9:27

The nice thing about having jobs for two students, but only moving them one spot is that some students will have the same job for two weeks, and that means they can train the new guy. All you have to do is train the kids at the kids at the beginning of the year, and then they can explain what to do to the next person. It cuts down on starting from scratch each week.

Heidi  9:47

That was an unexpected bonus. I didn’t consider that when I was setting up my chart, but I quickly realized how nice it was not to have to explain things every week. It also helped that I was strategic about the order I assign jobs. Even though I was rotating my students through their jobs, I wasn’t rotating them in alphabetical order. So before school started, I would just put kids names in the job chart at random.

Heidi  10:12

But by the end of the first week, I had, you know, a clear sense of what my students were like. So on that first Friday, when I went to make the first rotation of the job chart, I stopped to organize the name cards. I split the cards into two piles: the ones I thought could do their jobs independently, and then the ones I thought would need some more support.

Heidi  10:31

Then I made sure to mix those two groups so that the kids who would need support came between two kids that I trusted to be responsible. That meant that for my jobs, that required two students, I knew that one of the kids was likely to remember what to do and how to do it, and they could be the one reminding their classmate. As the year went on, like I might have to tweak it a little bit or split up a few names that I thought could go together. But for the most part, this whole thing worked really seamlessly.

Emily  10:59

We sent out an email recently asking teachers to share their biggest headaches about class jobs, and we heard from several teachers who said that having to remind students to do their jobs was just creating more work for them. Having two students per job and then assigning those students strategically can be a way to solve that problem, or at least cut down on the frequency.

Heidi  11:21

Another thing to consider is how often you rotate those jobs. If you’re like a lot of teachers we heard from remembering to rotate jobs is adding to your stress. In that case, you can try taking rotation out of the equation. You know, get creative. Let kids choose their own jobs or assign jobs for a month or maybe even a whole term.

Emily  11:41

We heard from one teacher who had this suggestion, train two students to do a specific job, such as plug in Chromebooks, then those two do that job for the entire year. If one is absent, the other one recruits a friend to help, and they are the trainer.

Heidi  11:55

I love that idea. Having two kids do the same job is a great way to ensure someone is remembering to follow through and keeping the same job all year means you don’t have the hassle of rotating and training new students.

Emily  12:08

Another way to ensure that your class jobs are getting done is to have a set time for each job to happen. By pairing the responsibility with a set time, you don’t have to do as much reminding, because reminding is the worst.

Heidi  12:20

It really is, and I definitely had to do less reminding with the jobs that happened at lunch or recess. The jobs that were most frequently forgotten in my classroom are the ones that happened in the morning, but the end of my day, it ran like a well oiled machine. I think a big reason for that was that I had a set time for those jobs.

Heidi  12:40

For the last 10 minutes of the day, I gathered everyone at the rug for a read aloud, and then while I read, my eight kids with jobs went to do their tasks. They handed out homework and reset the attendance chart. They erased the board and sharpened pencils. When they finished, they either helped some of the other kids finish their tasks, or they came to the rug to listen to the story. Because I was reading aloud, everyone was quiet, and it just it worked really, really well for my classes.

Emily  13:05

That’s the same system that I used as well. I do think that the time queue helped it run so much more smoothly. And if it was relying on me having to remind them to do things, things would not get done, but they could remember on their own, because that happened every day at that time. So if you want to try something similar in your class, but read aloud wouldn’t work at that time, you could try projecting a calming video for a few minutes, assuming your kids wouldn’t get so distracted that they forget to finish their jobs.

Heidi  13:35

Yeah, that’s always the problem with videos. But having a set time where kids are doing their jobs and the rest of the kids are doing something else. Is one way around the pressure of needing every student to have their own job.

Emily  13:48

We heard from several people who said that their biggest struggle with jobs was having enough for every student. If you’re in the same boat, try out a new routine. We got lots of suggestions from teachers. You could do just a few class jobs like Heidi and I did, you could do jobs for half the class and switch back and forth. Another idea is to just assign a job to each group or table.

Heidi  14:09

Quite a few teachers mentioned how much simpler things got when they got rid of class jobs and instead assigned a helper or two each day. One teacher told us class jobs used to be a management headache until I switch to two leaders per day.

Heidi  14:22

My leaders of the day do everything, line leader and Caboose, lights papers, calendar, whatever I need. I have two rings of names at the door, girls and boys, but they could be organized in any manner. I flip the names each morning to see who the leaders of the day are. This process has simplified jobs in my classroom.

Emily  14:40

And another teacher added, I changed jobs to helping hands. I have two students each day who are my helping hands. They do all the jobs. I love it. I switch the kids daily, so they have turns frequently. I change the helping hands when I change the date. Super easy and the kids love doing all the jobs for the day. It saves so much time and energy.

Heidi  15:01

Emily and I did something similar when we taught preschool. It was just easier to have our star student of the day, do all the special jobs than it was to try and train, you know, three and four year olds to do lots of things together.

Emily  15:14

Yes, it definitely streamlined things to have one set helper for all of the tasks. On the other end of the job spectrum are teachers who have students apply for their class jobs. For some of our listeners, that has been a great system.

Emily  15:26

One said, I love my class jobs. I have students apply for their job, which I change out monthly. They write a sentence for each of the three jobs they want and why they think they would be good at that job. I tell them to select jobs they haven’t tried yet, and I keep a spreadsheet of which students have had which jobs.

Heidi  15:44

I think that sounds like a really fun idea and a great way to get kids invested in their jobs. But we did also have several teachers mention that that type of system adds to their headaches. It’s a lot to manage every time there’s a switch over.

Emily  15:57

No kidding, and you have to schedule class time for kids to write their applications, then you have to figure out which students get which jobs, then you have all the training and reminding. Now, if this type of setup is working well for you, or it’s super appealing to you, then that is great. But if you’re trying something like this and it isn’t working, don’t be afraid to try something new.

Heidi  16:17

Or maybe you have a totally different job system in place and having students apply for jobs sounds amazing. If a switch up is what you need, go for it, even if it’s in the middle of the school year. Your time and energy are too precious to waste on managing a system that is not supporting your goals.

Emily  16:36

Another tip for managing class jobs is remembering that managing class jobs can be a class job. Make someone your teacher assistant or personal assistant or job supervisor. One teacher had this suggestion.

Emily  16:48

The secret to making class jobs successful, I think, is to include the following two jobs: manager, the person who is in charge of ensuring everyone else is following through with their job for the week, and substitute the person’s job it is to step in for any role if someone is absent.

Heidi  17:05

Once you have figured out which jobs you’ll assign to students and how you need a system for letting the kids know about it. Like I mentioned, I just used index cards and library pockets on my wall. You could use popsicle sticks and library pockets as well.

Emily  17:19

And I’ve seen some classrooms that had job chart posters and marked students with clothes pins or magnets. That type of job chart takes up a little less space.

Heidi  17:29

We got a good suggestion for a chart, free job chart. This teacher said, in Google Slides, I made a class job slide where most of my students have a job each week. I make it ahead of time, and I duplicate the slide and label it week one, week two, etc. Everyone rotates one spot each week.

Heidi  17:46

On Monday, I print one paper copy of that slide for students to reference, and I read the jobs like this. John is the lunch tracker, and then the kids repeat it until all the jobs are read. Also, I make sure to assign two sub jobs in case someone is absent. I refer to them as substitute one and substitute two. If the kids are spacey and forget jobs, subs are always eager to step up. It works great.

Emily  18:08

This is a great system. I love that she can plan out the whole year at once. You’d only need to tweak it for students who move in.

Heidi  18:16

Plus she doesn’t need a whole wall to display her jobs. She can just print the paper for the week and then post it where it’s out of the way, but still something that the kids can reference.

Emily  18:24

Hopefully, this discussion has given you some ideas for how to tweak your own systems and to abandon anything that isn’t working for you and your class jobs.

Heidi  18:34

Remember to build in consistency so you don’t have to do all of the reminding and expect your students to help where they can. Make sure to check the show notes for a link to our guiding questions for procedures and routines to help you really troubleshoot the tricky parts of class jobs and the rest of your school day.

Emily  18:52

We’d love to hear how you handle class jobs. Come join the conversation in our teacher approved Facebook group.

Emily  18:59

Now let’s talk about this week’s teacher approved tip. Each week, we leave you with a small, actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week’s teacher approved tip is leave empty space in your job chart. Tell us about this, Heidi.

Heidi  19:13

Well, this suggestion comes from one of our listeners who told us, I start the year off with three empty spaces on my job chart for the class to decide what we need. This typically happens in an organic way, and empowers students to see solutions to problems. And after I read that, I just thought that was such a brilliant idea.

Heidi  19:31

It’s a great way to encourage kids to recognize what needs to happen in the classroom in order to keep your community running efficiently. And being able to recognize like that is such an important skill, and as we know, is one that a lot of adults lack. So anything we can do to encourage kids to notice what needs to be done is so beneficial.

Emily  19:52

Plus, I love that this gives kids tools to be problem solvers. If you bring a problem to the class, or if they notice one themselves like the backpacks are being left in a messy heap, instead of hung up neatly, you’ve given them a way to tackle the problems themselves.

Emily  20:07

Maybe the kids will suggest creating a backpack monitor job to check the backpacks each day. Because you’ve created the expectation that your class adapts as needed they’re learning how to build a system that supports their goals. So that is such a powerful lesson.

Heidi  20:23

To wrap up the show we’re sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily  20:27

I’m giving extra credit to the book Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty, but I kind of don’t want to give you a synopsis, because I think it’s more fun to go into this one not knowing anything. So I’m not going to say what it’s about, but it’s good, so that should encourage you to read it, right?

Emily  20:45

I read her book, What Alice Forgot like over 10 years ago, and have been a big fan of her ever since. Her most famous book is definitely Big Little Lies, but this one is definitely at the top of my list from her now I really liked it, and it’s a different vibe than Big Little Lies, I think, like, in a good way, like, not as Big Little Lies, skews a little dark. This is not so dark.

Heidi  21:07

Oh, that’s good, because I haven’t read Liane Moriarty for that reason. I just want light and fluffy and happy.

Emily  21:13

Well you, you should read What Alice Forgot then, because that is, that’s a good read that I feel like is more in the fluffy, not maybe not fluffy, but not stressful.

Heidi  21:24

Okay, that’s what I need. That’s maybe that’s what I need. I I need, not stressful in my reading.

Emily  21:28

Yes, I think, I think you’d like that one.

Heidi  21:30

Okay, good I’ll check that out.

Emily  21:31

What are you giving extra credit to Heidi?

Heidi  21:34

Not to give anyone stressful ideas, but I’m giving extra credit to Hampton Forge’s knives.

Emily  21:38

There are no knives in Here One Moment.

Heidi  21:41

Okay, there we go. My aunt, well, I guess our aunt, yes, hosted a big family breakfast a few weeks ago, and I was helping out and cutting up some melons. The knife she had was so nice. It was just cutting through that honeydew like it was butter. I was like, I gotta find these knives.

Heidi  22:00

And I was so surprised to find them on Amazon for really reasonable prices. So to try it out, I just got a utility knife, and it was five bucks, and I loved it. It’s been very handy. So if you are a dedicated cook, I get that you’re rolling your eyes at me for this, but for the kind of cooking I do, these are great.

Emily  22:19

Well, I’m gonna have to check them out. I didn’t try the knives when I was there, I was opening cans, so I didn’t, didn’t get to use a knife.

Heidi  22:29

That’s it for today’s episode. Use guiding questions to evaluate how all your class jobs are working, and try moving some blank space in your job chart to adapt to your classes needs during the year.

Emily  22:40

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a five star rating and review in Apple podcasts. Ratings and reviews are so helpful to us because they help new listeners find our show.