The first few weeks of school are filled with promise. New notebooks, fresh faces, and the quiet thrill of starting again. It is also when the tone of the classroom gets set, not just through lesson plans, but through the relationships and routines that begin to take shape.
One of the most powerful ways to build those relationships is through creating shared agreements. Not just classroom rules. Shared agreements.
It is a small shift in language, but a big shift in how students experience belonging, safety, and ownership in the classroom.
When students feel they have a say in how their classroom operates, they behave more responsibly and stay more engaged. A growing body of research supports this, including studies in child psychology that show collaborative norm-setting builds trust, increases motivation, and helps students internalize values rather than simply follow instructions.
Unlike rules that are imposed, agreements are built together. And what we build together, we are far more likely to care about.
Creating shared agreements doesn’t mean throwing structure out the window. It means grounding that structure in shared understanding. Here's what this can look like:
In the first few days of school, invite a class discussion around questions like:
What makes a classroom feel safe and fair?
What do we need from each other to do our best learning?
What happens if someone breaks an agreement?
Encourage honest contributions. Some students will echo what you would have written yourself. Others will surprise you with clarity, maturity, and empathy. This process doesn’t just give them a voice — it gives them vocabulary for thinking about community and consequence.
Write the agreements together on chart paper or create a visual reminder for the classroom wall. Keep it visible and revisit it when needed. The goal is not to create a perfect list, but to help students see that classroom culture is a shared responsibility.
When students are part of naming the values that matter to them, they are more likely to uphold them. But the real impact comes in the way those agreements are lived every day.
It matters that you, the teacher, refer to the agreements often, not as a disciplinary tool but as a shared compass. It matters that they see you modeling the same behaviors the class has committed to. And it matters that students feel safe enough to speak up when something needs to be added, adjusted, or revisited.
This kind of classroom culture isn’t built overnight. But once students experience it, they carry it forward: into group work, into school corridors, into how they treat one another outside of class.
A classroom is not just a place to learn. It is a place to practice how to live with others. Shared agreements are one of the simplest, most powerful ways to begin. Not just because they reduce conflict, but because they teach young people that their voice shapes the space they are in.
And that is a lesson that lasts much longer than a school year.
