For most teachers a common concern is the drip, drip, drip of low-level behavioural problems, with 46 per cent of secondary school teachers we interviewed for a YouGov survey last year stating that they had witnessed worsening behaviour over the last five years.
These are the low-level behaviours that prevent effective learning, cause untold stress to teachers and pupils alike, and if remaining unchecked can escalate to more serious incidents of verbal and violent abuse in the classroom.
In reality, it is very hard to say whether low-level behaviour is genuinely any worse than it used to be or whether we are just more adept at recognising it.
In most schools, for most teachers, children do behave – most of the time. Of course, they will present challenging behaviour occasionally, but managing this has always has been part of the job.
Instilling discipline and respect from the class is perhaps one of the most important things a teacher needs to be able to do. But how? What are the secrets to effective discipline and the management of poor behaviour in the modern school landscape?
At the Education Support Partnership, we believe that behaviour management is best when teachers, school leaders and parents come together to create policies that meet the needs of both students and teachers.
If we want to hold on to the best teachers we must ensure that they are adequately trained and supported to tackle bad behaviour effectively.
This can be done through a number of routes, perhaps most effectively through initial teacher training, with follow up CPD throughout a teacher’s career.
We provide free teacher resources, such as Managing Pupil Behaviour: A Practical Guide, as well as our Be Well Teach Well website, offering teachers useful strategies for managing behaviour in their classrooms (see further information).
Jayne Davies, who wrote the Managing Pupil Behaviour guide, suggests that there are many strategies designed to help behaviour, but she is clear that improving pupil behaviour is not just about responding to inappropriate behaviour – it is about creating conditions that encourage positive behaviour.
These conditions can only work, however, if they are underpinned by the following principles:
- Clear, robust, behaviour and discipline systems and a framework of consequences, which are understood by all (staff and pupils) and contributed to by pupils and students.
- A whole-school or college approach.
- A focus on the positive recognition of appropriate behaviour.
- Positive relationships are developed and maintained.
- Organisations work in partnership with agencies and stakeholders, including parents/carers.
- Awareness of adults’ emotional responses to inappropriate behaviour.
Research shows that there are four basic approaches to improving classroom behaviour: rules and procedure, teacher-student relationships, disciplinary interventions, and mental set.
Here is our advice for appropriate rules and procedures:
- Create rules and express them positively. It should not just be a list of don’ts.
- Justify rules and rehearse them! “Because I say so” is not a persuasive justification.
- Discuss rules with the class. Explain their purpose, i.e. to improve learning.
- Negotiate with the pupils to get commitment. Ask for suggestions and remember to justify and compromise. Make posters and get them to “sign up” to the rules.
- Regularly review the rules together.
- Encourage pupils to devise rules and take ownership of them.
- Remind pupils of any relevant rules before a potentially disruptive activity or if you are aware of “something brewing”. This kind of response can drastically reduce inappropriate behaviour.
- Encourage and develop team-working (team rules for success).
- Regularly get pupils to self-assess their own behaviour set against the rules.
- Link the rules to the five broad areas of “low-level disruption” – talk, movement, time, pupil-pupil relations, teacher-pupil relationships.
- Julian Stanley is chief executive of the Education Support Partnership – the new name for the joined forces of the Teacher Support Network, Recourse and Worklife Support.
Further information
- The Education Support Partnership’s support helplines for teachers and other education professionals can be accessed via 08000 562 561 (England) and 08000 855088 (Wales). Visit www.educationsupportpartnership.org.uk
- You can access the Education Support Partnership’s Be Well Teach Well advisory website at
www.bewellteachwell.org.uk