Back2School – The perfect time to review behaviour management

Well it is the start of term for many of you ‘back to school’ it is on all the adverts and there are documentaries and discussions on TV about what it is like for children, parents and teachers. We started back this week with the usual meetings and staff training days. On Friday we had a whole school training day on Behaviour, this is not because behaviour is a serious issue at our school but we felt we could all do with a focus on this again as it has been a while. As I said the main issue we have is on more low level disruption we are lucky because the majority of our students are extremely nice!

I started my teaching career at a inner city comprehensive (National Challenge school), geographically it is perhaps the closest school to Saltash.net but couldn’t be more different. As I am writing this it reminds me of something I heard a Year 11 student say to another teacher in the corridor one time “those who can teach, teach those who can’t teach here!” The last time I did some serious reviewing of behaviour management was some intensive training for a year as an NQT thrown in the deep end at that school. I know many of you will have heard this before but it is always good to look at this from time to time. First of all I am sure you have heard this quote before but ever since I began teaching I have kept this at the forefront of the way I approach teaching every day.

“I am a decisive element in my classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humble or humour, hurt or heal. In all sets it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be exacerbated or de-escalated – a child humanised or de-humanised.” Ginnott (1972)

Here are some of my thoughts/suggestions with this in mind:

The way in which we communicate can have a powerful influence on behaviour often we think that this is just verbal when actually our body language can be the biggest influence. Have a think about what students see when they enter your classroom? Are you greeting them at the door with a smile and positive body language? If you walk past someone or greet someone who is displaying more ‘negative’ body language how does it make you feel? Making eye contact with students is essential otherwise they think that you don’t care – if you make eye contact with students you don’t even need to talk to praise them or make them feel good about themselves – you can give them a thumbs up to let them know that you have noticed they are doing well and no one else gets to see – particularly good for boys who get embarrassed when you praise them in front of the class.

The language you use is really important some this is just common sense and they you probably communicate like this all the time but don’t really notice it – it is useful to consider this though and reflect on your own practice because you may be doing little things that may be creating barriers with you and specific students. I have taken some examples of this from the DFES behaviour management training materials from 2004 – I have used these a few times since then. If you want the full training materials please let me know and I can forward them on to you. Here are some things to consider that I have put together just focusing on the language you use:

Language-based techniques for promoting positive behaviour

Tactical pausing: Pausing briefly in a spoken direction to emphasise attention and focus.

Incidental language: Directs or reminds a pupil without directly telling them. For example,

‘There is a lot of mess in this room and it is nearly time for lunch’ – this sends the message that the room needs to be cleared up before the group can go for lunch, without criticising individual pupils.

Behavioural direction: Directs a group or individuals by referring explicitly to the expected behaviour. For example, ‘Dean Listening to the instructions … Thank you.’ This focuses the pupil on the expected behaviour. It is important to use verbs or participles, rather than negative clauses (e.g. ‘listening’ rather than ‘don’t talk’) and keep it as brief as possible.

Distraction/diversion: This can be used to prevent a scenario from escalating. For example, where a pupil shows early signs of losing focus on a task ask them to help give out some materials and then thank them for their help, before asking them to return to the task.

Choice direction: Provide a directed choice, within the classroom rules or routines. For example, ‘Ali, put your personal stereo in your bag or give it to me to keep until the end of the day, whichever you choose’, rather than ‘Give me that now’.

Direct questions: Use questions such as ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’, rather than ‘why’ or ‘are you’. These sorts of questions direct responsibility towards the pupils, rather than asking for reasons. For example, the redirection ‘What should you be doing now?’ is better than ‘Why aren’t you working?’

Separate the (inappropriate) behaviour from the pupil: Make the behaviour unacceptable, not the pupil. For example, ‘Throwing books is not acceptable in this room’ is a better response than ‘Stop throwing books in this room’.

Our whole school training day was carried out by a great guy and speaker Dave Vizard. He did a great job and has his own website and also a regular e-newsletter that you can sign up to which gives you practical and regular tips on behaviour management. You can visit his site here: http://behaviourmatters.com/

It made me think that no matter how long you have been teaching or how much experience you have and no matter how good your classroom management is we all could all do with reflecting on how good do we as teachers model positive behaviour and how will you be reacting to any challenging behaviour in the next few weeks as you start with your new classes? I would love to hear from NQT’s in particular if they try any of the things mentioned in this blog post.

One Comment

on “Back2School – The perfect time to review behaviour management
One Comment on “Back2School – The perfect time to review behaviour management
  1. There’s lots of good suggestions here. I really liked Bill Roger’s advice in his books and videos too.

    With very little children, singing does work rather well. I don’t know whether it’s my dreadful voice but a quick song is a handy way of getting children to focus when this is needed and can be a useful alternative to shouting or waiting…and waiting….and waiting to gain children’s attention.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *