Class jobs are something I avoided as a teacher. And now, I absolutely love allowing my students to have classroom jobs. You may be wondering why I changed my opinion on class jobs. So let’s start at the beginning…
During my first year of teaching, I tried having classroom jobs. I quickly realized two problems: I didn’t know how to manage a classroom full of students, let alone know how to manage students doing jobs. Secondly, I could never remember who had what job, when did I change them…etc, etc.
Helper of the Day
After that, I switched to having a Helper of the Day. This one person did all the jobs. They also did anything else I needed. This worked in my classroom for YEARS. But what I began to notice, I still had lots of students who would ask to help out. Since the Helper of the Day was usually busy, I’d allow them. This worked fine most of the time but sometimes a student would be upset because they didn’t get to do something. And sometimes a class job wouldn’t get done at all.
Team Class Jobs
So then I decided to try team class jobs. This system worked really well. It covered all the class jobs that needed to get done. I found there were students who allowed others in their team to do all of the work. There wasn’t much accountability for the “slackers”
Leadership Roles
So that brings us to a couple of years ago when I decided to try a mixture of all 3. Everybody has a class job, some jobs require “crews” (multiple people), and my teacher’s assistant takes care of any “jobs” I may have forgotten. I also started paying them with Class Dojo points. This helped with accountability and I have a person whose job is to make sure everyone is doing their job!
Class jobs also last about 6-8 weeks. This allows students to become experts at the job and I can actually remember who has each job. So it’s a win-win! Plus I end up only having to teach how to do each job at the beginning of the year because students train their successors.
One of the things I also do that I really think helps with buy-in is I have students apply for class jobs. This helps me to make sure I’m giving students a job they actually want to have.
Our Class Jobs
Here’s the basic breakdown of all our class jobs.
- Volume Monitor – Reminds students of voice levels when class is too loud
- Electrician – Turns on/off lights
- Lunch Count Supervisor – Takes our lunch count each morning
- Pencil Supervisor – Collects & Sharpens pencils each afternoon
- Table Manager – Checks that tables are cleaned and supply caddies are organized
- Door Supervisor – 2nd person in line & holds the door for our class
- Library Crew – Make sure the classroom library is organized & box boxes are returned & neat
- Maintenance Crew – Sweeps & Cleans in the afternoon, reminds students to clean up
- Role Manager – Makes sure everyone completes the job & fills in for anyone absent
- Hallway Monitor – Walks beside line in hallway & looks for students following directions
- Teacher Assitant – Completes any jobs needed by the teacher
- Cafeteria Supervisor – Monitors behavior in the cafeteria & lines class up after lunch
- Dismissal Supervisor – Makes sure students are following dismissal procedures
- Dojo Leader – Awards Dojo points for class jobs
- Morning Supervisor – Makes sure students are following morning procedures
- Tech Crew – Double checks all Chromebooks are turned in and charging in the afternoon
- Bathroom Supervisors – Monitors behavior in the bathroom during restroom breaks
I have a highlight on Instagram where I share more details about each job and give a little bit of a visual of what they do in our classroom.
