One Sunday Joan is teaching her Sunday School class. She is very laissez-faire with her expectations. The children can wander around and talk during the lesson and don’t need to ask permission to use the bathroom. The following Sunday, Ron comes in to teach the same class. He becomes very frustrated because the children do not sit and listen. The children can not understand why they are in trouble.

What is the problem?

Some could say that it is because you have different volunteers teaching the same class but that isn’t the issue. The problem is that the children do not know the expectations for their behaviour and they keep changing week by week. If you share a class with other volunteers you need to work through a list of expectations and then everyone needs to stick to them.

Some things to think through

(1) What is the procedure of getting the children into the classroom

(2) negotiate some expectations with the classroom – is it possible to print them out and put them somewhere so that everyone can refer to them.

(3) How are you going to deal with disruptive children?

(4) How can the leadership team support each other?

Establish a procedure