Building Student Responsibility With Classroom Jobs

Classroom jobs are a great way for your students to take responsibility for their classroom. It helps them to gain a collective sense of pride and to show others how much they care for their learning environment. Students learn to work cooperatively  with their peers in the class community. For these reasons and more I think that every class should have a well organized classroom job system. After all, what a better way to teach our students to be responsible than to give them responsibilities.


Organizing a Classroom Job System
Here are a few ideas that I have gathered which will assist any teacher in beginning to use a class job system.


 Plan Before School Starts

If you are not back to school yet, then now is the best time to start. Make a list of all routine tasks from the beginning of the school day to the end. Some tasks may require little manpower while others may need a heft. Some may need a long time to complete while others may be short. Depending on time and duration you may need one student or more. Think about it carefully.

  Jobs For All!

This may sound a bit too much, but it is best that ALL students get an opportunity to perform tasks during the course of the day. Create jobs for as many pupils that you have in your class in this way every one will be busy managing something and there would be little time for mischief. To give you a little idea of some of the possible jobs for your students check out K6 EducatorsAbout.com and this article entitled Best Classroom JobsList Elementary School.

Have a Rotation System

Everyone knows the dangers of having one person in the same role for too long! They get very powerful! Students sometimes get rooted into the positions that they are put in and they can wreak havoc in the classroom. This can work against you and all your efforts to sustain peace in your classroom. Of course in your planning stage you must think about the duration of roles before switches are made. One week is good so shuffling around should be done by the Friday or Monday if you’re late at it.

Display Assignments 

The assigned responsibilities as well as the description of these responsibilities must be displayed to remind ALL of what they are supposed to be doing. Pocket charts are great tools for classroom helper display.  

 Remember To Use Your System!

I am so guilty of forgetting about using the assigned students that I get into a lot of trouble afterwards. Naturally I get stern reminders from watchful eyes to make sure that it does not happen again in the future. 

Give Feedback!

Feedback is always appreciated by kids whether it comes in the form of praises or reprimands.  Your students want to be assured that you are monitoring what is taking place at all times. They do not appreciate being given tasks while you are using your now spare time to attend to external matters. Look on! Monitor! Listen! Advise! Guide!

 Here are some classroom job resources that you may find interesting.

 Here is my Superhero themed Classroom Helpers Chart. For further details click the picture below!

Check out my TpT store for editable classroom job resources.