You would never walk into a lesson without a plan. The objectives are set, the resources printed, the activities ready.
But do you walk in with the room ready too?
Before, not after
In most schools, behaviour is handled after it happens: the incident, the response, the intervention. Yet the signals almost always come first. The noise builds.
The grouping doesn’t work. The change of plan nobody was warned about. The child who arrived already struggling.
If we watch for those signals ahead of time, many incidents never happen.
What an incident really costs
One incident rarely stays small. There’s the documentation, the follow-up, sometimes an investigation, conversations with families and meetings.
Every one of those takes time, and it’s time you could have spent on teaching and learning.
Two minutes of preparation can save hours of reaction.
The readiness check: 1, 2, 3
Do this at the end of the day to prepare for tomorrow, or share it with your teaching assistant.
1. The room
- Is the noise level under control (fans, doors, corridor)?
- Is the seating right for the students who need it most?
- Is the calm corner or quiet space set up and available?
- Are busy displays or distractions away from the focus areas?
2. The students
- Who had a difficult day today?
- What changes tomorrow: a cover teacher, an assembly, a room swap, a trip?
- Who needs a heads-up before those changes?
3. The activities
- Are the groups planned deliberately, not left to chance?
- Are instructions broken into steps and ready to show on the board?
- Are transitions and materials prepared, so there’s no waiting time?
Do it together
Your teaching assistant sees things you don’t. They sit beside the students, hear the side conversations, and notice who is struggling before anyone else does.
Making the readiness check a shared two-minute habit turns their observations into prevention.
Two minutes, every day
Lesson planning is how we prepare for learning. The readiness check is how we prepare for the students who have to do it.
Book a consultation with #ProfessorSherleyLouis and see what two minutes can prevent in your setting.
Prof Sherley Louis is an inclusive education and sensory inclusion strategist and Head of Inclusion, working with schools, families and communities across the UAE and MENASA region.