Run It

A classroom charter takes one period and no technology beyond a sheet of paper. Here is the shape.

1 · Ask how they want to feel

Open with the real question: “How do we want this room to feel?” Gather their words — safe, respected, focused, included. These are the target, in the class’s own language, not yours.

2 · Ask what will get them there

“What will we actually DO to feel that way?” Keep it small and concrete — listen without interrupting, make room for quiet voices, keep a disagreement about the idea not the person. Ours, not a rules list from above.

3 · Write the repair — the load-bearing part

The question most rooms never answer until it is too late: “What will we do WHEN WE DON’T?” Agree a calm reset now, while everyone is calm — a breath and a beat, naming the slip kindly, repairing one-to-one after. A reset, never a punishment. This is the part that makes a charter work.

4 · Sign it and keep it in the room

Print the charter, sign it together, and post it. Revisit it when the room slips — not as a gotcha, but as “this is what we agreed.” The signed sheet is the whole record.

Sheets to print

Three pages for the period. Each prints on its own; nothing is collected.

Word slips

Thirty slips to cut out and hand round: everyone writes one, and you read them out together.

One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…
One word for how you want this room to feel
One thing we could do
When we slip, we could…

From ClassPact · sparkanvil.org/play/classpactPrinted Printed from this device. Nothing you made here was sent anywhere.

Our charter

How we want this room to feel

What we’ll do

When we don’t, we’ll…

We agree

From ClassPact · sparkanvil.org/play/classpactPrinted Printed from this device. Nothing you made here was sent anywhere.

For a bigger poster, choose A3 or tabloid paper (or “fit to page”) in your printer settings. It uses outlines only, so it is light on ink.

Charter check

Once a month, talk it over together. There are no scores; it is a conversation.

Which line is working?
Which line needs a repair?
Anything to add?

From ClassPact · sparkanvil.org/play/classpactPrinted Printed from this device. Nothing you made here was sent anywhere.

Honest about the evidence

Building a classroom charter is the lowest-tech, best-evidenced part of the RULER approach: the studies behind RULER are strongest on classroom CLIMATE — warmth, connectedness, how a room feels to be in — and were largely run by its developers. So the honest claim is that a co-built charter improves the climate of a room, not that it is a proven mental-health outcome. It is cheap, it is quick, and it collects nothing. That is enough reason to do it.

ClassPact keeps no student data, has no dashboard, and does no screening. It helps you run the activity; the class owns the result.