Classroom Management

Majaoni ECD serves 92 learners across two early childhood classes (PP1 and PP2), located in Majaoni — a diverse, densely populated area where most residents are low-income earners. The community experiences a high level of parental illiteracy, which affects children’s timely transition from home into formal schooling.

A key challenge faced by the school is the presence of over-age learners in early childhood classes. These learners often exhibit behavioural and maturity differences from their younger peers, leading to hyperactivity, destructiveness, and bullying. Such behaviours affect not only their own motivation and self-worth but also slow down the overall learning pace, as the ECD curriculum is not designed to meet their needs.

Over-age learners have been struggling to engage with ECD content designed for younger children, finding it insufficiently challenging and becoming disruptive as a result. Teachers have observed these older learners dominating learning activities, denying younger children the opportunity to access and use teaching and learning resources. Bullying and hyperactivity have made it difficult for the whole class to follow instructions and maintain focus.

Through parent interviews, the team identified poverty and parental illiteracy as the root causes of late school enrolment. As one parent put it: “Poverty and domestic issues make me unable to enrol my kids at school on time.” The result has been classrooms where significant age and maturity gaps between learners create daily disruption, affecting the learning environment for everyone.

The team developed a Classroom Regulations System – a set of practical strategies and visual tools designed to manage learner behaviour, maintain a productive learning environment, and ensure instructional activities run smoothly. The system combines several complementary components:

• Regulation icons – visual symbols displayed in the classroom to set clear expectations and boundaries
• A sliding television – an iterated visual tool used by teachers to facilitate classroom regulations interactively with learners
• Reinforcement charts – used for positive reinforcement, tracking and celebrating behavioural improvements
• Visual daily schedules – supporting time management and routine through familiar, predictable structure
• Teachable moments – capitalising on spontaneous opportunities to reinforce positive behaviour and values
• Interactive learning activities – keeping all learners, including over-age students, actively engaged

Together, these strategies create a learning environment where all learners, regardless of age, feel safe, respected, and motivated to participate.

Implemented over eight months across three schools and eleven classes, the Classroom Regulations System has delivered clear results. Learners are now more disciplined and orderly, peer relationships have strengthened, and the learning environment is calmer and more inclusive. Smoother classroom management has enabled earlier completion of the syllabus, giving teachers more time for enrichment and support.

The team’s next step is to expand the system to ECD classes across additional schools, and to present the innovation to other counties and countries as a replicable model for early childhood classroom management.

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