Greet them at the door, by name

In a randomised study across ten middle-school classrooms, teachers who greeted each student at the door by name, with a positive word or a quick precorrection for the ones who needed it, saw significant gains in academic engaged time and drops in disruption, at a cost of roughly three minutes a day (Cook et al., 2018). It works because it front-loads belonging and resets yesterday's ledger before today begins.

In practice

• Name plus one thing: "Morning, Amir. Good answer yesterday." Rotate who gets the specific comment; everyone gets the name.
• For the student who struggled last lesson, a quiet precorrection at the door ("today we start fresh, phones away first thing") beats the same words said across the room later.
• This is the perfect partner for a do-now starter (see "Have a task on the board before they sit down"): you're at the door because the board is already teaching.