John Bayley booklet

Chapter 1 The Three Main Theories Underlying Behaviour Management If we want to understand behavior, we have three powerful theories we can turn to. They are behavioural theory, cognitive theory and humanist theory.

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Behaviourist theory is about managing behaviour by attaching rewards and costs to behaviours.

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Cognitive theory deals with the ways in which people process information and understand the world.

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Humanist theory is about understanding and meeting people’s emotional and psychological needs. In this chapter we will consider these three theories.

A. Behavioural Theory Behavioural theory is based on the observation that all animals respond in a patterned way to regular stimuli. A certain stimulus is associated with a certain response. The model used to describe this shows the mind as a black box with a stimulus going in and a response coming out.

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This simple idea lies behind all the animal experiments we are familiar with. For example, if rats are given a lump of cheese every time they touch a green bar with their nose and an electric shock each time they touch a red bar, they will soon start touching the green bar all the time.

These theories give us insights into human behaviour and they can be applied in the schools environment.

1. The importance of the proximal environment.

People are strongly influenced by their immediate surroundings. It is a commonplace observation that if we follow a class of students around a school their behaviour will vary dramatically from one class to another. That variation will be largely accounted for by the behaviour of the teachers and teaching assistants in the different rooms. As teachers we often attribute pupils’ behaviour to their psychological characteristics or social background. However, when we put our behaviourist spectacles on we are reminded that the first place to look when understanding how to manage behaviour is the immediate environment – the classroom.

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Chapter 6 Putting the Plan into Action

Now we are putting the theory into practice. In this chapter we will be looking at a class in action and describing how positive behaviour techniques are combined with teaching technique in the classroom. Positive behaviour management does not happen in isolation; it is an adjunct to teaching and the two need to support each other. There are two underlying themes in this description. The first theme is teaching and reinforcing the behaviour we want. The second is confidently coping with unwanted behaviour.

Teaching and reinforcing the behaviour we want.

So far in this manual we have focussed on reward as a means of shaping the behaviour we want. In the classroom the first rule is to make sure the students are engaged. Positive behavioural and cognitive techniques work extremely well if our lessons are engaging in their own right. We can put it in humanist terms and say that our lessons need to meet all the needs of our students including their creativity and curiosity. If we think they have no curiosity and creativity then we need to look at our lesson planning.

Teaching This is not a teaching and learning manual, however, before we consider how a smoothly run lesson works we will look briefly at some teaching ideas that contribute strongly to a well ordered lesson.

Make sure the objectives are clear and phrased in a way that students understand.

Wherever possible ensure that they are linked to previous learning. Students work better when they know what their focus is and how it links to a longer learning journey.

Experienced teachers often invite discussion about the objective.

Students need to know how to be successful. When students know what they are meant to be producing, whether it be an essay, a piece of construction work or a role play, and are provided with exemplars, “top tips” , demonstrations and frameworks they are far more likely to engage with the lesson. Students benefit both from knowing how to undertake the task (“read the instructions twice, make sure the edges are sanded”, “highlight key points in your notes, make a rough draft first) and what the finished product should look like (“ a box with exactly square joints and a smoothly closing top”, a five paragraph essay using key words and PEE. Levelled outcomes are more exact and encouraging than formulations such as “all, most and some”) Crisp teacher talk. Sometimes we do need to give lengthy and detailed explanations. But nine times out of ten it is better to give a crisp and purposeful introduction to a topic and let students get on with a task that will get them into the subject at hand. Students will want to listen to your explanations once they have had a crack at the work and are interested in what you have to say. Students need to spend a substantial amount of time processing information and one of the best ways of doing this is through discussion with each other.

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Research tells us that teachers take up ninety per cent of the talk time in classrooms. When we do that we are actively preventing their students from thinking! A good way to keep your introductions and explanations brief and crisp is to use the timer on your interactive whiteboard.

Manage Student talk.

Use lollipop sticks or a randomiser to ensure that over the course of the lesson you are involving everyone. When you want a question considered or discussed it is often a good idea to get students into pairs or threes and get them all discussing it. You can then ask for responses from some of the groups. When you get good answer remember to ask if anyone else got the same point so that you can acknowledge them for it. Procedures like this often work better than asking individual students to ask questions without prior discussion Step up the pace.

Generally lessons work best when there is a good pace and students feel they are making steady progress. There are lots of ways to do this. One is to make sure that the lesson is divided into a series of episodes. This not only increases the pace, but it also provides natural opportunities for students and teachers to assess the progress they are making.

Another way to break up a lesson is to use “plenary” points to share success and techniques or to give further explanations. Not only is the time broken up, but students are given accurate feedback on their progress and can pick up the sense that they are “getting somewhere”. Once again, the timer on your IWB is useful in helping you to judge the time.

A lesson can fall into the doldrums if the “on-task” phase goes on too long. Some students have finished the bulk of the work, others are bored, the temptation to gossip is huge.

Planning for good behaviour So when we are planning for good behaviour we are looking at the way we have designed the lesson as well as looking at our routines, rewards and sanctions. None of the techniques that we described above is right for every lesson or teacher. There is no one right way of teaching. But when we look at behaviour in the classroom we cannot divorce it from lesson design and delivery. Often our experience in the classroom is that the children seem impossible and we tear our hair out thinking of ways to manage the class. We work on our management techniques and on our teaching techniques. Once we have got past the initial stages and built some rapport, we come to realise that the most important thing is engaging the class and that some of our behaviour management techniques become unnecessary.

However, this is only true up to a point. Schools are like families. The students attending them are children and will feel the need to test limits from time to time, some of them will present particular individual challenges. Problems from the outside world come directly into school and in some areas pupil turnover produces a regular crop of interesting new behaviour. So lets look at how one teacher might apply these ideas.

Starting the Lesson.

The beginning of our lesson is marked by some well-worn routines. The teacher meets students by the door and uses the opportunity to greet them, remind them of expectations and perhaps give them a curtain raiser for the coming lesson. Once inside, Small children know when to leave their play and head for the mat, older students know get on with some 2

set activities. A considerable amount of time has been put into teaching these routines in the past and now they are more or less automatic.

Today’s lesson focuses on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and in the opening activity the students are matching quotations from the story against sets of statements describing mood and pace.

A few students arrive late. Our teacher, Ms. Jones, has a routine for late arrivals. They enter the room quietly, sign the lateness register on her desk and then sit in a seat at the side of the room. She does not want to interrupt the lesson by intercepting latecomers. She also knows that the question, “Why are you late?” is a pointless invitation to an argument. She will deal with late arrivals either later in the lesson or after the lesson when the discussion does not attract an audience.

Routines in action Once the starter is finished Ms Jones puts her own answer to the matching questions on the board and asks who agreed with hers. Lots of hands go up. She then asks students who had different answers or improving suggestions to make and this leads to a lively discussion.

Ms. Jones then introduces the objectives for this lesson, (using a range of adjectives to describe character) as well as a set of graded outcomes. She then gives out an answer she has written, tells the students that it contains deliberate mistakes and invites them to grade it and make suggestions for improvement. She sets the timer on the IWB and the class sets to work.

Ms Jones circulates the room. She has taught her students the appropriate sound levels she expects for different activities. (Quite often these days teachers use electronic sound meters on their interactive whiteboard so that students can manage their own sound levels by responding to a visual or sonic signal).

Some of the administrative activities in her room have been delegated to students. The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books and starter sheets were on the table as the students entered. The sheets for the grading exercise are given out quickly and unobtrusively by a pair of students. Her students also know that if they have finished a task they can give support to students who have not. To make sure this does not get out of hand she also has a local rule, “maximum of 5 people out of their seat”.

After 10 minutes Ms. Jones finishes the activity and puts the written responses from two students up on the visualiser. She invites them to the front to talk the class through the grades and comments they have made. Ms. Jones makes a point of checking with the whole class by a show of hands to find out where they agree or disagree. She is keeping a running record on the notation board in her room so that the students can see who is getting vivo points for their work.

Ms Smith now puts students on to the main task, writing their own five paragraph essay.

Key word sheets are given out and there are some frame working sheets available. One of her young assistants makes sure that each table has a dictionary and a thesaurus. Ms. Jones 3

says she is happy for them to discuss their ideas with their talking partners and sets the time running again.

Her students have also been given guidelines for talking partners (discuss taking it in turns, agree main conclusions, agree what to say and who will say it if asked) and peer assessment ( swap work, re-read criteria, give stars with evidence and two wishes, with examples). She has worked hard to encourage independent working in her room.

A sign on her wall says’ THREE BEFORE ME If you do not know the answer: Re-read the hand out or what’s on the board Ask a buddy Look in the text book Ask the teacher This is a well established class. Another sign on the wall says: Three ways to keep Ms. Jones happy Remember to PEE in your answers Performance voice when reading to the class Organise your folder properly before you hand it in We can tell from this sign that the class has come a long way. In the first term the three ways to keep her happy were, “arrive on time, follow the sound guidelines, folders tidy at end of lesson”. She reviews these “ways of keeping Ms Jones happy” with her class at the beginning of each half term.

Reinforcement Ms Jones provides a great deal of reinforcement. It may be through smiles, quiet words of encouragement, praising a particular piece of work in a plenary session or using the class reward system. Some teachers do this in a quite deliberate way, for example, by acknowledging three pupils who are carrying out an instruction each time they give one. She knows her students well and has a good idea about who will respond better to a signal (thumbs up) or smile and who prefers a quiet word.

Ms. Jones uses a merit system in her classroom. She has personalised it. She has a set of small cards that each are worth one credit. When she sees a student working well or trying hard she put the student’s initials on the back of one of the award papers and hands it to the student. When the student has three of these it can be traded in for a vivo point. The system works well because it is personal and can be done quietly.

In some classes teachers use more explicit and public reward system such as frowny and smiley faces on the board. These can work well, but if we are working to turn a class round we have to be sure that earning a frowny face on the board does not become a badge of 4

honour for some students. It is sometimes better for the teacher to keep a list of the negatives in a file.

While circulating the room, Ms Jones quietly acknowledges students who are working hard, making sure that her praise is specific. She often adds an instruction on what to do next.

This is sometimes referred to in the literature as giving a “medal and mission”. The student is told what they have done well (the medal) and told what they need to do next (the mission).

After 10 minutes ms Jones uses a countdown to get attention and then invites a student she has just spoken with to share with the class her approach to planning the essay. Ms. Jones also uses the moment to say how pleased she is with the working atmosphere and to check if anyone needs help.

Ms. Jones uses positive phone calls home. She aims to make half a dozen calls a week. She uses them to target those students who have started to make an effort, but she is also careful to make sure that over the term a wider group of students receive those phone calls, including those “middle fliers” who turn up every day and do the work. She has a twenty minute period set aside every Thursday after school to do this.

Marking and Homework Ms Jones is aware of the importance of direct feedback for students in their books. She know that she cannot hope to mark every book every night, and the her department uses a Pupil Progress system whereby students are given a graded task twice a term and given formative feedback on a printed slip that is put in their books.

In addition to this she marks the classes’ books at regular intervals and at the beginning of the following lesson she will ask the students to read her comments and respond to an exercise she has set in their books.

When students assess each others work Ms. Jones often instructs them to give each other “three stars and a wish”. Ms. Jones has a stamp to show she has seen the feedback that has been done and it shows up clearly in the students’ books.

Coping with Unwanted Behaviour Low level disruption and re-directing.

Ms. Jones lessons have not always been plain sailing and she has had to learn some management techniques for heading off or coping with trouble. She noticed that even after she had given clear instructions at the beginning of a lesson and then checked that her class understood them, there were some students who would immediately put their hands up; 5

“Please Miss, I don’t know what to do” . She now makes sure that she has, “what to do” sheets ready for when those hands go up. She also reminds students of her Three before me procedure4 Also, as soon as the lesson is started, Ms. Jones is on the move. She knows from her seating plan and from past experience where she might come across a reluctance to engage. She knows she may come across some students who are not ready to work, “Please Miss, its boring”. She may also come across some students who are more interested in each other than they are in the work, chatting or fooling around. In these cases her manner is firm. She knows that nipping off task behaviour in the bud is easier than dealing with it later. First of all she checks that they know what to do and then she directs back to work. “Girls, I need you to start now. I will come back in five minutes and I expect you to have six of those examples at least”. She generally does this in a low level voice so as not to attract the attention of other students.

Ms. Jones may also judge that some action is called for sooner than later. For example if an out of class issue is still causing animate discussion between two students she may say, “Girls, I am splitting you up so you cannot distract each other. Carly, I need you to swap seats with Angela”. If she gets argument she sticks to her guns and simply repeats the command. Sometimes a student may move when asked, but make a lot of fuss on the way, barging across the room and muttering. Ms. Jones may choose to tactically ignore this secondary behaviour. However, if she does, she must remember to follow it up with the students after the lesson.

As Miss Jones continues to circulate the room she acknowledges students who are working.

She is also strategic in two other ways. She takes care to give praise and acknowledgement in the vicinity of some students who she sense are having difficulty in settling down. She sometime positions herself near to students who need to focus more. She does not saying anything directly to them, as she knows the power of her presence. She may deepen the effect of her presence by starting a mini plenary from the same position. She is also alert to when students get back on to task and quick to praise them for doing so.

Ms. Jones know that if she needs to use sanctions she needs to do it calmly. Showing anger and irritation is more likely to inflame a difficult situation. In her department there is a “parking” system whereby a student can be moved from one classroom to another if the teacher sees trouble brewing and thinks that both they and the student could do with cooling down. Ms. Jones sometimes uses this system is she senses that a situation may escalate and she is also happy to reciprocate when other colleagues want to “park” someone in her room.

Some Characters.

Ms. Jones has got to know her students well. This includes some of the classroom characters. Pete is the class clown. At first he was a bit of an irritation but Ms. Jones has tuned into the fact that his main need is for attention. She gives him the attention she wants but on her own terms. She is warm and encouraging when he is doing the right things, but rather distant and cold when he isn’t. Now that she knows this, she is able to be more 6

relaxed with him. The classroom clown can be genuinely funny and she is now able to join in the joke at times and then indicate when the fun is over and it is time to get to work.

Then there is Alice. She sometimes gets in a strop and goes for confrontations. Ms. Jones knows better than to get into arguments with her. When she needs to speak with Alice she always does it in a very low voiced manner or, if necessary speaks to her outside the door.

As a result of a one to one session a few weeks ago she now has a private signal, a small tap Alice’s desk when she sees Alice getting worked up to help her calm down before trouble starts. She has also given Alice some class room duties as she know that Alice likes to feel in charge and giving her responsibility helps.

In all of her classes there are individual characters who stand out. Ms. Jones has understood the benefits of getting to know them and making small adjustments to help them be successful. She is also wise enough to know that with some students what successful one day is does not always work the next and uses different strategies from time to time. From time to time she has one to one meetings with students who are causing her concern to make her expectations clear to them and to build up her relationships with them. She also knows that reflecting on these students behaviour and planning out ways of coping with them proactively is better for her own morale than simply waiting to see what happens each day.

Closing the Lesson Ten minutes before the end of the lesson Ms. Jones again gets the attention of the class.

She has had three mini plenaries during the lesson so the class have a clear idea of how successful they have been. She tells them she will be choosing three essays to distribute to the whole class and tells them their homework will be to complete them. She then asks them to use the post its that her helpers have place on the desks to write down three things they like about the lesson along with any suggestions they might have for improving it. The class are familiar with this routine; they write the note, pack up their belonging and put the sticks in the usual place on the class notice board on the way out.

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In the classroom the first rule is to make sure the students are engaged

Students need to know what they are learning.

Students need to know how to be successful Teacher talk should be crisp and focused Manage student talk Ensure a brisk pace Plan for good behaviour Use a brisk set of routines for starting the lesson Have a routine for late arrivals Use timers, and randomisers Try using talking partners Make use of peer assessment “Three before me�

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Personalise your expectations Plenty of positive reinforcement Medal and mission Use school reward system such as vivo points Circulate the room Clear systems for feedback and homework Check on off task students – return to them within a fixed time Be quick with preventative actions such as re-seating Use proximity to encourage on task behaviour Have clear procedures for “parking” students or using “on call” Plan for the behaviour of individual students Use one to one meetings where appropriate Clear routines for end of lesson Where appropriate get student feedback on your lesson

Have a think about these questions.

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How do your routines help to maintain positive behaviour?

What techniques are most effective for you when dealing with disruptive behaviour?

How can you increase the level of praise in your classroom.

How do you unobtrusively manage low level issues?

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BOOKLET 5 BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS Every encounter you have with a student builds or diminishes the level of mutual trust between you and them.. Without trust, teaching and learning is much harder. It can take a lot of time to build that trust. We can expect to have good days and bad days.

In this booklet we will explore • • • • • •

The Importance of trust Trust Building strategies Seeing the world from the young person’s point of view Managing meetings Meetings wit Parents Managing our expectations

The Importance of trust

A fundamental part of education is the building of relationships. We often experience anxiety about classes or individuals. Perhaps the class behave poorly or individual children are uncooperative and unwilling to learn. Yet somehow later in the year the situation changes. Students are more compliant, we are more understanding of the ways in which individuals behave or think. We are able to use a more informal manner in the classroom. The key thing that has happened to transform the situation is that the learners and the teacher have established trust and mutual respect. Many of the behaviours that we can find puzzling or difficult in students are much easier to understand if we realise that they may not trust us or may feel threatened by us. Here is a story to illustrate the point.

Suppose some teachers were taken to the makeup rooms of the Hammer Film Studios and dressed up in monstrous smelly latex suits so they looked like eight foot tall, green, slimy monsters with bulging eyes. Then suppose we gave that group of teachers the task of going to an unfamiliar school and making contact with, and then teaching the children there.

When the group of monstrous teachers arrived in the playground, the students would react in various ways. The bravest of them would throw stones. Others would write rude messages about the monsters on the wall, while others would go and hide. Now, imagine you were one of those teachers. Inside your smelly latex suit you would watch the students behaving in various ways. You would probably think that they were behaving as they were because they were frightened of you, or did not trust you. It would not occur to you to label them. Also, in attributing their behaviour to fear or distrust, you would be concentrating on their emotions as much as on their behaviour.

Another point about being in the latex suit is that you would not take the students’ behaviour personally. You would understand that their behaviour stemmed from fear and mistrust. You would realize that they were reacting to your mask, to the image they had of you. This would be in marked contrast to what often happens in the classroom.

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Most of us find it very difficult not to take aggressive or hostile behaviour personally.

And when we take it personally, we tense up, adopt aggressive body stances and postures and become part of the problem ourselves.

So, how can you build trust with your students? Well, all the procedures and ideas we have discussed so far will make sure that your own behaviour is fair and predictable.

Combined with good teaching that will help you begin the journey towards being a trusted adult. What else can we do? This is where we come to the all those actions, both big and small, that we take to reach out to learners

Trust Building Strategies These include;

Greeting and welcoming students in the morning. In many schools the management team is on the gates in the morning welcoming students to school and breaking the ice at the beginning of the day. Form tutors are welcoming in form sessions at the beginning of the morning and keep an eye open for students who seem unhappy or distracted. Schools that provide breakfast for studenst before school will be sure to have members of staff present. This is often a warm and welcoming time of day that provides opportunities for an informal chat or word of encouragement.

Finding out and acknowledging students’ special interests. At the beginning of the year many teachers use informal questionnaires or quizzes to find out students special interests and engage with them. A shared interest or hobby can work wonders in building a relationship and learners’ interests can be used in lesson design or teaching.

Acknowledging and greeting students around the school. You will have noticed that some staff pay attention to noticing students around the school, taking time to comment favourably on a new haircut or achievement, such as playing well in a game. These small encounters have a cumulative effect. Sometimes you might want to stay away from a student who does not look particularly friendly. Overcome your anxiety and make the effort to reach out; the young person will usually appreciate it even if they do not feel able to respond in a positive way.

Congratulating students on their successes. Listen out for news of successes that young people have outside your own classroom. In secondary schools you will sometimes find that students are doing better in some subjects than they are in yours.

Instead of being hurt by this, congratulate them on how well they are doing in another subject. This can also have useful surprise value. Students often think that teachers do not talk with each other! In primary schools it can be useful to say something like, “Miss X was just saying how well you did in the intervention group”.

Making positive phone calls home. Some teachers commit themselves to making a regular series of positive phone calls to students’ homes. Positive phone calls do not take long. “Hello Miss Jones, this is Mr Bayley from school. I just wanted to let you know

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that Benny is doing really well. He is making a good effort this term and makes excellent contributions to form discussions. Do let him know I called”. Parents and carers really welcome positive calls and the word soon gets round your students. It take about fifteen minutes one evening per week to start working through a list of twenty or students, especially as many of your calls will be to ansaphones. Some schools used automated SMS text t send positive news home and that works just as well. Most school policies contain advice about phone calls home so make sure you know the procedures in your school.

Joining in extra-curricular activities like the school play or trips out. Joint activities outside the classroom allow you and your students to see and understand each other in different circumstances. This often has a surprisingly strong effect. There is nothing like braving a series of rapids in a canoe or hanging off a rope together to establish a bond.

The same is also true of gentler activities like the school play or a day trip out of the school.

Meeting parents and carers in the playground. In primary schools take the opportunity to greet and meet parents in the playground .In both phases of education Parents Evenings are a useful opportunity to build home school links. As well as the information that is exchanges such meetings are an important opportunity to demonstrate to students that school and home are not two separated compartments.

This is helpful to the young person who is trying to understand what their responsibilities and freedoms are both at home and in school.

Time and Trust. As trust builds, our schools and classrooms becomes place we want to share with enthusiastic learners. But do bear in mind that Rome was not built in a day. It takes time to build up trust. We have to be persistent and keep reaching out to young people even when we feel that we are not getting anywhere with them. When we are doing this we need to try to see the world from the young person’s point of view.

Seeing the world from the young person’s point of view.

‘Most of the time [you misbehave] because you’re bored to death and can’t understand a single thing the teacher’s doing. You can ask them for help but they make you look stupid.

They say ‘I’ve explained it so many times, you should have been paying attention’, but they’re not speaking in a way that you can understand. You get bored and think that teacher just makes me look stupid, so I might as well cause trouble.’ (Female Year 10) The above extracts ae taken from a collection of interviews with young women in schools in Newham in London. As you can see, they present a vivid picture of their lives in school and that picture may not be the same as their teacher’s. This should not surprise us. Whenever we compare the views of students, teachers and parents about 3

events in school we find striking discrepancies. Thee explanations they make for events and the way they react to them is often very different.

This takes us back again to the issue of trust and time. If we want to understand the young people we are working with we have to learn to be good listeners. Most meetings and encounters with your people should provide an opportunity for the young person to give their point of view. Young people will seldom “open up” to us in one encounter and there are some things that they will never share with us. Our job is to make sure we keep listening and keep providing them with opportunities to explain their view of the world to us.

This brings us to the subject of meetings. A considerable part of individual interaction with students is through meetings of one kind or another. These range from a quiet word in the corridor through progress meeting and sometimes on to more formal case review or disciplinary meetings.

Managing Meetings Every encounter we have with a student can be thought of as a meeting in the sense that it has a beginning, middle and an end and that some information is exchanged. This may range from a friendly greeting in a corridor through to a progress review or a discussion at parents evening. Or the meeting may involve a statement or re-statement of rules or a discussion of some disciplinary episode.

Sometimes it is useful to have one to one time with learners whether to deal with a specific issue or to provide support, not just for negative behaviour but for learners experiencing emotional difficulties or a difficult period. These may be informal, during assembly or break times, or more planned. The learner may not even realise they are having a specific ‘meeting’ but there still have an intended outcome; • • • • •

To build the relationship between teacher and learner To further understand the learner To develop personal, social and emotional skills such as teaching ways to manage anger, how to respond appropriately to others, how to manage and express their feelings.

To provide support during a difficult time which may range from an illness in the family, to a house move, or bullying and relationship difficulties.

To discuss a specific issue or incident

The nature of these sessions will vary depending on your objective. They could be very informal involving chatting while doing an activity or more structured and include explicit social skills exercises. This will also depend on the individual learner, their age and needs.

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As with all one to one meetings, make sure you are familiar with your school’s child protection policies, especially how to deal with disclosures.

If you want to run successful meetings with students you will need to think about

Planning, What do you want to get out of this meeting?

Consider the intended outcome. Make sure your expectations are realistic.

What are the key issues you want to focus on? It is a good idea to think of progress in small steps. It is also a good idea to think of the areas where you are most likely to be successful at first and to prioritise them.

Who should be there? It often useful to have a one to one meeting with a student. On the other hand you may want to involve the student’s parents or carers, or another adult in the school Where is the best place to meet? You will need to consider how likely you are to be interrupted as well as choosing a place that is in sight of or easily accessible to other adults. (There will be school guidelines on where and when to meet with students – for example some schools organise sessions in a supervised hall for meeting students after school to make sure there are no child protection concerns or possibility for false accusations o be made against staff member. ) The opening.

How do you plan to set the tone for the meeting? It is generally a good rule to start on a positive tone. This may be no more than thanking the student for arriving on time or pointing to a recent achievement. If the meeting is intended to tackle some difficult issue or if the student thinks they are in trouble for something, it is possible they have stopped listening before the meeting starts. Beginning on a positive is a good way of making sure you have their attention. It is also a good idea to set the context early on so that the student know what is involved. “Today I want to look at your attendance record and discuss what we can do to improve it”. It is also a good idea to let the student know how much time is available for the meeting so that he or she knows what to expect.

The process, How do you plan to run the meeting? You can design a meeting so that the locus of power is strongly in your hands. Your intention may be to re-explain your classroom expectations, check the student has understood them and bring the meeting to an end.

Or you may want to explore some issues with a student and find out more about their perceptions and motivation. In this case you may want them to talk more and you will not be exercising so much power. Instead, you will be concentrating on listening. Your talk may be more restricted to reflecting back or summarising what the student has told you.

What information or other material needs to be introduced? If the issue is evidence based you need to make sure you have whatever evidence you want to use ready to hand. The evidence may be student’s work, attendance records, teacher or students statements or commendations. If the talk is closer to information sharing or counselling it can sometime be useful to have some activity to hand. An old favourite is to invite a 5

student to help you with organising folders or reorganising some part of the classroom so that not all the attention is focussed on the student who may be shy or self-conscious.

What scripts and messages might you use? Here is a record of a brief meeting with a student and a teacher immediately following a lesson. The teacher is using a script and making sure thy stay in charge of the meeting.

Teacher: Richard, what are you doing?

Student: Nothing Teacher: Richard, what were you doing when I gave you that warning?

Student: Well, they started it.

Teacher: Uh huh. But what were you doing?

Student: I threw the paper back at Billy

Teacher: I see, what should you have been doing?

Student: What are you going to do about Billy?

Teacher: We’ll worry about that in a moment. What should you have been doing?

Student: Working Miss.

Teacher: What rule were you breaking?

Student: Throwing things Miss.

Teacher: And what could you do to put things right?

Student: Make sure I ignore them in future.

In the above meeting the teacher was using the “4Ws”. What were you doing? What should you have been doing? What rule were you breaking? What can you do to put things right. There is obviously a certain amount of trust between the teacher and the student as the student was (grudgingly) answering the questions.

Messages. During a meeting you can drop in some key messages. Three of my favourites (from the work of Lee Canter) are,” I’m not going way”,” I care about your success” and “You are a member of my class”. You can put the first message over in quite a literal way. “I teach you maths four days a week and that means we have 28 lessons left this term and 48 next term, so we had better start agreeing on how to work together”. This message lets the student know you are not giving up on them. Telling students that you care about your success lets them know that you care about them, but puts it in a way that does not embarrass them. Telling a student that they belong in your class and that they have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else lets them know that they have a community to belong to and you are welcoming them into it.

Most teachers have messages that they habitually deliver to students that convey the same ideas. One teacher I know use o tell her most challenging children that were her “special puzzles” and that she was going to get to know them. Other teachers tell their students that they are going to make them into good scientists, linguists or

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mathematicians whatever it takes them to do it. All these messages are way of telling students that they belong and that we care about them.

Closing How can you make sure the message sticks?. Make sure you give a succinct summary of the meeting. Check that the student understand by getting them to repeat it back. Close the meeting on an optimistic note so that the student sees that they can be successful. Tell them your door is open if they want further discussion.

Evaluation and Follow Up. How will you evaluate the meeting and its outcomes?

After the meeting take a moment to reflect on how successful it was. Do not evaluate the meeting by reflecting on how you feel. Instead reflect back on what your realistic hopes for the meeting were? Did you keep to the plan you had for the meeting. If the meeting took a different turn, was it productive Do you think the student understood the point you were makingB Did the student provide you with any new information of insights?

Be sure to keep a brief note of the meeting; date, time, topics covered and a brief evaluative comment. Such notes are useful for keeping track of progress and are invaluable in the event of any future investigation.

Pit falls and surprises

Being blanked.

Sometimes it is not possible to get a response from a young person. You might have tried to get a response using the “4I”s. For example, “Stephanie, when I am explaining and someone is playing with the equipment, I can see that they are not focussing on the work, I can see that other students are distracted from their work and I am not able to teach properly. I need to have everybody’s attention”.. (the four I’s describe what the teacher sees and hears, what effect it has on the student and those round , what effect it has on the teacher and what the teacher needs). However, on this occasion, Stephanie is not engaged. She stares out of the window and refuses to answer. One strong response is simply to say, “Stephanie, thank you for coming to see me. I can see that you are not ready to talk just now. I will come back to this at a more suitable moment. You may go now”. Then you stand up for her to leave the room.

The control is now back with you. Your next step is to change the setting and the audience. The next day Stephanie is invited to a meeting with another member of staff there; preferably someone you feel has a better relationship with her. That other person might say, “Stephanie, Mr. Bayle is a valued member of staff. I hear that you and he have had some difficulties. Mr, Bayley, can you tell me what has happened”? At this point you calmly start repeating your 4 Is. The point is that you have changed the setting and the audience for your meeting, you have not changed your script. In this example the other person at the meeting has explicitly boosted your author. The addition person could be a arents, another teacher, a manger, or anyone who can assist in opening up communication with the young person.

Reacting to criticism 7

If you are challenged by a child “its not fair you are always picking on me”, you do not have to react defensively. It is sometimes useful to invite them to give examples of what they mean. Then you can say you have noted what they are saying and you can return to your main point Sometimes the child or adult you are talking may not want to respond. In such cases it may be appropriate to finish the meeting. “Thank you for coming. I can see you are not ready to talk right now. We can come back to this later. This puts you back in control of the process. You can meet again at a later point, perhaps with another adult present.

The Issue of Power Profiling and interaction Power struggles Attention Seeking Withdrawa Revengel

Meeting with parents.

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BOOKLET FOUR: MANAGING EMOTIONS Despite your best laid plans you can encounter difficulties in the classroom. You are working with children or adolescents who will test you to see what they can get away with and will sometimes bring their own issues into the room. If you are new to teaching or new to a school the students may not trust you. They may be confused by your own inconsistent behaviours as you are establishing yourself. Schools carry some of the emotional intensity that families do. They are theatres where young people establish their identities and explore the extent of their power. It is quite natural for there to be conflict in the classroom. It is up to us as adults to manage those conflicts in a caring and professional way.

In this chapter we will • • • • •

Introduce a model of emotions review emotional management strategies explore conflict and anger review strategies for managing anger and conflict with individuals and groups apply the model to managing fights

A Model of emotions

When we are teaching we experience a range of emotions. This is true for most people in work situations.

Mad, sad, bad and glad. Transactional analysis (TA) gives us an easy shorthand way of classifying our emotional responses. At any time we might feel mad, sad, glad or bad, or some combination of these emotions. We can use the idea of personal domain to put these emotions into context. “Personal domain” refers to all those factors that make up our sense of status and well being. Our personal domain includes our sense of our own power and influence, and our worth in the eyes of others If we perceive that our personal well-being is threatened we feel bad (anxious, apprehensive) and if we feel our personal well- being is attacked we feel mad angry, hostile, aggressive). If we feel we have increased our personal well-being we feel glad (happy, elated, joyful). If we feel that our personal well-being has been diminished we feel sad (unhappy, depressed and listless). At work everyone experiences these emotions to some extent. This is particularly true of occupations that involve working with or managing other people. If you have at times felt completely useless at your job you can comfort yourself with the fact that everybody experiences feelings of ineffectiveness from time to time, including the most powerful people you can think of. The key for us is maintaining a professional and positive approach and not displaying the internal feeling that we sometimes experience.

Two further factors make demands on school teachers. The first is the unremitting demands of child care. During the day students want your attention and project all sorts of fantasies in your direction.

Anyone with a school age child will have heard them coming home and saying how they love Miss So and So or hate Mr. So and So. Parents understand that these are passing fads and are unlikely to represent deep or long last feelings. But in the classroom you may be surprised by the intensity of the feelings directed at you. This experience is particularly intense if we are working with children whose additional needs make their behaviour unpredictable and difficult to manage. Most of us want to form positive relationships with the children we work with and we may feel dejected and 1

hurt by these displays of emotion. The key thing here is to understand that the negative actions and emotions are directed at you as an authority figure; never take it personally.

The second factor is stress. We experience stress when the demands of our work threaten to exceed our ability to cope with them. This is particularly pronounced when we have little control over our rate of work. School teaching is amongst the most highly stressed occupations. The current obsession with testing, recording, preparing for inspection and top -down management has dramatically increased teacher work load. Forty per cent of the profession leave within four years of starting their job. For them and for many others left in the profession, the level of stress has gone far beyond optimal and has led to inertia and depression. Particularly in primary classrooms, teachers and other staff have little control over how they manage their work; it is simply not possible to step out of the classroom and do something else for a while and then pick up the work later.

Starting and re-starting teaching. Sara Bubb has provided us with a model of how new teachers experience their first year in school. The year starts with high optimism and relatively low skills levels. As the autumn term progresses the new teachers skill level increase. However, their optimism is likely to decrease. This is because their performance is still uneven and students respond to them in uneven ways. Also towards the end of the first term teachers will be much more critical of their own performance as they now know what is possible. This can lead to an emotionally difficult time around December and January when the new teacher doubts her or his abilities. After that the situation improves. The teacher’s new-found skills stabilise, students respond better and the teacher’s skill level radical improves. At the end of the first year the teacher’s level of optimism is back to where it was in the autumn and it is accompanied by a radically increased level of skill. So if you are in your first year of teaching, do not make any career decisions before Easter!

A similar process can occur to teachers further on in their career. A teacher moves from a school where they have successfully built up trust with the students. This trust has allowed them to work in an informal way with the children who respect them. In their new school they find that the students do not automatically trust and respect them and they have to go back to basics in terms of classroom management. If they are rusty with this they can begin to experience status disequilibrium, a gap between their perceived status and their actual performance. For a period, they find themselves treading the same path as an NQT.

Managing emotions. When you manage your own emotions you professionalise, de-personalise, analyse, and you ask for help when you need it.

1. Professionalise –being professional means choosing your attitude, evaluating your performance against success criteria rather than your own feelings and taking as much control of your work-life balance as you can. (i) choose your attitude. School teaching requires us to be positive and enthusiastic even when we feel differently. Children will engage better and colleagues and parents are more likely to be cooperative if you take an optimistic approach and look for solutions rather than rehearse problems.

Most teams contain a mixture of movers and blockers. You have probably heard the saying that if you cannot spot who the blocker is on your team, it is probably you! Choosing your attitude means using all the positive scripts and techniques that we have discussed in these booklets. It is not the same as denying that the work can be extremely demanding and there are appropriate times to let off steam and share problems. The important thing is that you put on your professional positive persona when you arrive at work and keep it on for the day. The additional pay-off is that you will 2

feel better: spending the day noticing and supporting positive behaviour generate rather than drains energy. (ii) Evaluate your performance against your success criteria rather than your feelings. If you have bad feelings about a lesson, give the emotional wash time to pass and then evaluate which parts of your lesson were successful and which were not. You will usually realise that some parts of your lesson were successful and that most children were engaged. This then leaves you the task of planning to improve the lesson design and how to manage the students who are not currently engaged or who are causing you difficulties. (iii) Take as much control of your work life balance as you can. You will have had lots of advice about keeping fit, not drinking during the week, making sure you have one work free day per week and so on. Pay attention to this advice, especially in your first year of teaching. You cannot party and learn to teach at the same time!

2. De- personalise – De-personalising means reducing and managing your emotional investment in your work. You need to remember that you are the students’ teacher, not their friend, that you need to work with the behaviour, not the child. (i) You are the students’ teacher, you are not their friend. Young people want an adult to encourage them, to set limits and, above all, to show them how to make progress. If you do these things you will also build trust with the students in your care, but that will be a by-product of being the professional adult. It cannot be your main aim. If you are trying to be their friend you will be slow to give behaviour reminders when necessary and your eagerness to praise will make your praising sound too plastic. If there are times when you feel you have not won the hearts of your class focus on your lesson plans and on the routines that you are teaching your class. If those are right, the relationships will follow. (ii) “Blame the behaviour, not the child”. You may already have heard the phrase. It means that in confrontations with young people do not say or do things that make it difficult to build a relationship with them. You can say to a child that you find their behaviour unacceptable or hurtful or bullying.

However, if you call them bullies or liars or use similar terms, you will make them hostile or frightened of you. There is a deeper sense behind this. When your people are showing us their obstructive or difficult face they are rarely revealing the whole of their personality; they are only displaying what they want us to see at the time. We can broaden this idea out further by reminding ourselves that we are teachers, not psychologists, and that we are managing large groups of children. Your job is to be kind and fair to all of them, to make adjustments where you can that you hope will improve their learning and behaviour.

3. Analyse. When we are working in schools it is too easy to feel that you are on the receiving end of events. The school day happens to you and you may come to see it as something to be got through.

You can change this situation if you adopt a problem solving approach to your teaching and classroom management. Problem solving approaches typically share these common steps: • • •

Identify a desired outcome Make a list of the assets at your disposal Formulate a plan 3

• •

Put the plan into action Review and re-plan

Perhaps you have a class that is not focussing at the beginning of lessons. Your desired outcome is to get them quickly to work.

You notice that most of the students want to work. You also have an active TA willing to try something new. These will be your main assets.

You make a plan. In this case you are going to have a silent period at the beginning of the class. The students will follow written instructions that involve them checking their homework and undertaking a silent starter task. You and the TA will provide written instructions and any talking you do will be at whisper level. You will do this for a week. (nb this plan is s.m.a.r.t. It is specific, the result is measureable, it is achievable, realistic and time limited).

You put the plan into action. Make sure that you have carefully explained it to students beforehand.

As the days go on you both give the students feedback on their performance.

At the end of the week you review the plan. You find out what the students have got out of it and you and your TA decide whether to continue with it as a permanent feature or just to use it occasionally.

Using a problem solving approach will give you an active mission in the classroom; you become the person who is making the weather.

4. Four, ask for help when you need it. A hallmark of a professional is that they seek assistance when they need it. This might involve sharing issues with colleagues or managers. It is a good to be able to let off steam to colleagues. When you are sharing issues with managers present them in a way that demonstrates what you want to achieve and includes your suggestions on how to get to your goal. Sometimes it can be difficult to get the support you need. You have to manage upwards.

This can involve choosing the right time, writing clear memos, planning meetings in advance and if necessary getting the support of your union or professional association. It is not professional to bottle problems up or fail to seek advice. If after your best efforts you are not able to get support, it is probably time to look for a job in a different school!

Understanding Anger Probably the most difficult emotion to manage in the classroom is anger. Schools involve coordinating the activities of a large number of young people and adults. This is bound to generate some conflict and conflicts sometimes lead to anger. Conflict is a given and as a teacher you need the skills to manage conflict and to manage your own and other people’s anger. Do not be surprised or offended by this; it is part of your job.

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Four Stage Model of Anger

So, what is anger? A quick way into understanding it is to look at its mental, physical and emotional effects.

Stage 1. Individuals experience the early signs of arousal; muscle tension and irritability. The brain triggers some adrenaline release to prepare the body for action.

Stage 2. The brain begins to produce chemicals preparing us for fight or flight. This closes down some of the functioning of the neo-cortex causing the individual to focus closely on the things or people that are irritating them. They become fixated with the noises or the unwanted movement in their vicinity. The brain is now triggering the release of blood clotting agents; the throat becomes dry and the palms go sticky. The individual affected is likely to be experiencing the sensation of brain fog and find it difficult to think of alternative courses of action.

Stage 3. The brain triggers a large dump of adrenaline into the blood stream and the individual “snaps”. The heart begins to race. Time appears to slow down and the individual is fixated with the source of their irritation. They may lash out physically or run away. The response varies from person to person, but symptoms include fists clenching, teeth grinding, flushing, paling, prickly sensations, numbness, sweating, muscle tension and temperature changes They are no longer in control of their actions or properly aware of their surroundings.

Stage 4 The crisis passes. The individual concerned is still highly aroused and flooded with chemical messengers. This may lead to a repeat of the anger cycle. Individuals react differently to this flood of hormones and chemicals. Some people feel unwell or nauseous. They may experience regret and remorse. Others feel elated. It takes an average of twenty minutes for the level of arousal to decrease and the concentration of chemicals to disperse.

Anger severely disrupts our ability to perform and so does the anger of the students in our care. The issue of managing anger is more than a question of professional competence. If we are frequently aroused and annoyed, over- producing the hormones, adrenalin and fats we require for imagined fight situations, we will make ourselves ill. Understanding our anger and learning how to avoid it, manage it or vent it appropriately is a health issue.

Managing emotions in the classroom.

Of course, anger is not the only emotion we encounter in the classroom. As we discussed above, you as a teacher may feel overwhelmed or ineffectual and at time you will feel irritated or angry. The same will be true of some of your students. Sometimes this will manifest itself in a bored or irritable atmosphere in the classroom, sometimes students will resist learning and argue with you, sometimes a whole class might try playing “cat and mouse” with you, taking it in turn to argue or throw things around. There may also be times when individual students get angry or confront you.

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General principles.

There are five general principles to apply to situations where it is our job to manage our own and the students emotions and to restore a learning atmosphere. We will look first at how these apply in one to one situations and then at larger group contexts. The five principles are, 1. Manage you own emotions, 2. Follow procedures, 3. Use scripts and appropriate body language 4. Follow up properly 5. Review, vent and plan

1. Manage your own emotions. The single most important factor in managing difficult situations is to monitor and manage your own emotions. This is important both for helping you to make proper observations of the situation and to be aware of the correct procedures to follow.

Managing your own emotions may involve physical actions such as standing back from the person who is making you angry (rather than looming over them or stabbing your finger at them) , relaxing your muscles (rather than tensing them up), taking some long out breaths (rather than taking deep in breathes and stoking up your oxygen level) and modulating your voice (rather than raising it and increasing the level of tension).

Controlling your own emotions also involves some mental work. Remind yourself that you are the adult and it is your job to defuse the situation. Separate the behaviour you see from the young person behind it. It may be useful to recall what else you know about the person standing in front of you. Take the time to closely observe them. For example are they red and flustered? Can you see whether there is a fast pulse beating in their neck indicating that they are about to lose control?

Listen to what they are saying. Is it possible, to reassure them? Use your powers of observation to make an estimate of the state they are in.

Exactly the same principles apply when you are feeling exasperated or demoralised by the behaviour of a whole class. Take one step back and do a scan of the class. Which students are engaged and which are not. How much is the situation influenced by environmental factors such as the temperature of the room. Has the current activity petered out leaving too many students disengaged?

If you have lost your own temper use your raised voice as a trigger to stop shouting and move away.

Slow the situation down, talk deliberately and calmly. Anger threatens to push us into a trance-like state where we become unaware of our surroundings and of the consequences of our actions. When you feel yourself being pushed into this state look around the room and take stock of the situation and become aware of your surroundings. If you are having trouble managing your emotional state back right off and send for or fetch help.

2 Follow procedures.

When strong emotions are present there is a temptation to abandon normal procedures and start to “play it by ear�. That is usually a bad idea. What defusing procedures would we expect to see in potentially or actually difficult circumstances? In this section we will look at; Starting routines, using the reward and sanction system, circulating and defusing, reseating, positivity and humour, warning and redirections, tactical ignoring, on-call and parking, handling individual confrontations, physical restraint and moving the class.

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Starting routines You should be by the door when students enter the class. This is an opportunity to welcome them to the lesson. It is also an opportunity to see if there are arguments in the queue or if someone is looking angry or distressed. You may decide to hold them back from entering the room until you are sure they are ready to enter. If a class has difficulty settling at the start of the lesson you may decide it is necessary for them to leave and then re-enter the room.

Use the reward and sanction system. Use your reward and sanction system right from the start of the lesson and then maintain it throughout. If you are using a visible system such as names on the board your aim should be to get as many acknowledgements up as soon as possible. This lets students know that you are monitoring and demonstrates the right way to get your attention. The most important praise is verbal and you need to be noticing appropriate behaviour right from the start. With younger students it is more obvious “I see the whole of table four has started working, well done”. With older students your positive praise will look more like good manners, “thanks for that, good start”.

By the same token make sure that right from the outset you are commenting on and re-directing inappropriate behaviour. Do not hope it will just go away.

Circulating If your opening to the lesson is brief and crisp then you can soon be circulating the class using unobtrusive techniques to get the learning going. If you see a group having difficulty starting you may want to simply stand near them using your presence to influence their behaviour. You might continue your introduction to the lesson or explain an additional point from a standing position next to a student or a group of students who are not settling down. Instead of directly going to an off- task student you may want to praise and encourage some students nearby. The target student will usually get the message.

While you are circulating you can ensure that students understand what they are doing and encourage them back to work where necessary. Remember the idea of “medal and mission”. “Good start Yasmin, that opening paragraph introduces the topic well. Now we need three paragraphs arguing in favour of your case. I will be back in six minutes and I expect you to have written at least this much”, as you put a dot on the page to indicate how much you expect her to write.

You are doing all this using a very low level voice. You will notice it is infectious; the quieter you are, the quieter your class will be.

While you are circulating you can give quiet reminders of your expectations. Or you can depersonalise some of your reminders by addressing the whole class. “Class, lets just be sure we have all got our caps off and bags away”. Your target is a small number of students but you have not singled out any individuals.

Standing at the back of the room can be just as useful as standing at the front. You become largely invisible to the class. One benefit is that students who glance up will not see asking you a question as an easy way to avoid thinking out a problem for themselves! It gives you the opportunity to spot students who are working and those who need your help. You can look for those tell-tale headphone leads or poorly concealed mobile phones. If some students are “mucking about” you will spot it. It also gives you the chance to check that the whiteboard display is clear and the timer is on.

Re-seating A common cause of classroom disruption is two or more students playing games with each other that go wrong. Perhaps some teasing goes too far, or the game is used as an excuse to settle a score from some dispute outside class. It is usually pretty easy to spot this. You need to do 7

something about it right away. Move over to them and give a clear warning. If you are in any doubt that this will be successful, separate them. This will usually give rise to strenuous objections on their part but see it through. It is one of the most effective ways of defusing trouble there is.

Positivity and humour As you circulate the room, be aware of the power of your own positivity. If you are enthusiastic about the subject and encouraging to the students they will feel more confident and relaxed. Humour can work well in the classroom if it is used properly. For example a tired looking group of students at period seven may be saying things like, “Miss, we’re too tired, please leave us alone”. You may win them over by saying things like, “If it was down to me Hamid you would have your own personal holiday island and I would fly you there myself, but right now, you have four more equations to finish”. However, do be careful with humour, especially when you are just starting to build a relationship with a class. Humour often involves saying one thing and meaning another. It can be challenging to students with communication difficulties and also students can be sensitive if they think they are being teased. So use humour with care.

Warning and redirection Make sure you are using your reward system and acknowledging compliant behaviour. However, you may spot an individual or a group of students who are not working and are off task despite previous redirections. You may decide to talk to them individually or you may need to talk to the whole class.

If you spot some students who are carrying on a game or a discussion or disagreement that has started outside the lesson move in quickly with a warning. Alternatively you may decide to talk to the whole class. Do not go in for “shhhooshing” when the noise level is too high as that just betrays your stress Individual warnings Individual warnings are usually most effective when they are quiet and personal. But there is room for personal judgement. It can work when you say across the room, “John, get on with your work, that is a second warning”. Do bear in mind though that there will be an audience for John if he answers back and you will have to manage that, If you want to speak to a student at the front of the class or by the door make sure that you are facing the class and they are facing you while you are talking to them. While this is going on, make sure you continue to acknowledge and reward students who are doing the right thing.

You can gain additional effect by using some performance techniques. You look pleased and smiling when you praise work and more reserved and firmer when you deliver warnings or sanctions. Do not get into discussions or justifications. Name the rule and the penalty. “John, you are still not working, second warning”.

Whole class warnings. There may be occasions when a whole class plays up a teacher. They may start playing “cat and mouse”, taking it in turns to “wind up” the teacher by talking out of turn, moving around the room, throwing bits of paper. The biggest challenge here is for the teacher not to lose their own temper and start shouting. When the class turns into a contest between the students and the teacher, making the teacher angry can become the main objective for some of the students.

Stay in command of your emotions. If you decide to stop the lesson and address the whole class make sure you relate your comments to progress and learning and keep your statements relatively brief. Do not make threats you are not going to carry out.

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Use your pre-arranged signal for attention and do not put up with the sound level being “good enough”. Do not proceed until you have got it where you want it.

“Class, most of us have got started with the work. There is still some chattering going on. I want to hear quiet partner voices while you are finishing this exercise.” Check your own voice level. You need to sound calm but firm.

It can be useful to insist on working in silence for a period.

It is quite common to get talking under and off task behaviour if an activity has run out of steam. You can either finish the current activity right away or set a fixed number of minutes for it to be completed.

Tactical ignoring. It is sometimes tempting to ignore low level misbehaviour in the hope that it will go away or that you will be able to make it to the end of the lesson. This is usually a mistake. The best way to tackle misbehaviour is head on with clear directions supported by sanctions and acknowledgement where necessary. However, it can be useful to make a distinction between primary and secondary behaviour. For example, if you want a student to move to another chair they may comply with your instruction but accompany the move with a bit of grumbling under their breath. At this point you have a tactical choice to make. Moving position was the primary behaviour you wanted. The muttering while making the move is secondary behaviour. You may decide to take up the muttering right away. On the other hand you might think you are creating a further problem for yourself, especially if the young person is in a position to deny saying anything. Under such circumstances you may choose to ignore the secondary behaviour on the grounds that you got the compliance you wanted. However, if you do decide to tactically ignore misbehaviour you must follow it up later in the day with a quiet word away from the rest of the class. “Sarah, I was pleased you moved yesterday, but I do not appreciate muttering under your breath.” “Sorry Sir”.

Young people rarely argue back when there is no audience and the word soon gets round that you follow things up.

Parking and on call If you have an arrangement with a colleague to “park” students in each other’s room for cooling off, use it if you judge that an individual student is getting into a state or digging a hole for themselves. “John, I need you to go next door to Mr. Maloney’s room, so you can cool down”. If necessary, escort them to the room concerned and have a quiet word with the teacher. (If this situation has been building up over recent days you may well have pre-warned your colleague that this might happen.)

Do not hesitate to use the on-call system if you judge it to be necessary; that is what it is there for.

Teachers worry about using on call for fear of being thought weak or incompetent. However, on-call systems are there to support staff and to support learning and using it is part of your professional work. If you anticipate difficulties with a class it is a good idea to advise your department head or senior staff beforehand. If you are concerned about over-using the system it is an indication that you need to do some problem solving with your department or year group to get the class back on track.

Individual Confrontations. Individual confrontations do occur. A student may refuse point blank to comply with an instruction and decides to “square up” to a teacher. This most often happens with male teachers. It probably has something to do with testosterone; men find it harder to defuse situations when they feel challenged. Body language and voice tone are important when managing 9

physical confrontation. Stand sideways to the student so that you are not squaring up yourself. If they move around to get in your face just make another quarter turn. Keep your body still; gesticulating hands and nervous movement will aggravate the situation. Make sure there is a good distance between you and the student, you want to avoid looming over them. Keep your voice tone low and controlled and keep repeating your instruction. You may want to include some script that acknowledges their feeling. “John I can see you are angry right now, I need you to talk with me outside the room”. Leave plenty of pauses in your speech. Avoid putting the student in a situation where there is no way out. “if you cannot sit down again then you need to leave the room”.

During confrontations observe the student closely. If you think that they are under the influence of drink or look as though they might be preparing for a physical fight, back right off and send for help.

“John, someone is coming from the office, it will be alright”, and then put more distance between you and them.

In the highly rare and unlikely event of a student closing right in and attempting to “monster” you by standing far too close, put up a protective hand and say loudly and firmly, “Back off, back off”.

Repeat it as many times as necessary Physical restraint If a situation becomes highly charged be aware of the need for physical safety.

Each school has its own policy on physical restraint. As a general rule I would strongly advise against preventing a young person from leaving a room or physically manhandling them unless it is done to protect another student. If you do use physical restraint make sure you give a running commentary on what you are doing so that the student and other people in the room know what action you are taking and why. If you use restraint release it as soon as you are sure the student is sufficiently calm.

In situations where a student has become unmanageable and is refusing to comply it is sometimes useful to move the whole of the rest of the class to another location to remove the audience for the student who is acting out. You will most likely have support from other staff by this time While you are choosing which options to use make sure you are acknowledging students who are remaining on task.

3. Use Scripts and appropriate body language An important part of managing anger is the scripts you use. This is true both of situations involving an individual student and situations involving the whole class.

We reviewed a range of scripts that you can use in booklet two. Scripts helpful in situations of heightened tension as you don’t need to think of what to say in the heat of the moment. For example, if a student calls you a name you simple need to say, “inappropriate language, “I’ll see you after class”. If an agitated student uses swear words you might say, “Tell me that again using appropriate language please”.

When tension is heightened use brief and focussed scripts. “John, I need you to sit down in your seat”. Calmly repeating your message several times means you do not run out of script and is a good way of getting your message across. Your tone may become firmer but guard against speeding up your delivery or raising your voice. When people are angry they are in a kind of trance state and they can be surprisingly responsive to repeated instructions.

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It is a good idea if you leave a pause before you speak in tense situations. If we are surprised or upset our throat changes shape and we make a squeaking noise or sound hoarse. Give you throat time to get back to its proper shape. A pause can also allow the student to reflect on the gravity of the situation.

This technique also stops you from getting into arguments. It is not possible to win arguments with angry students, so do not try.

When people are in an aroused state, it can be useful to use statements that acknowledge their feelings such as, “John, I can see you are angry and upset. Right now, I need you to sit down”.

Choose your language carefully. Avoid saying things like ”calm down”, that may inflame the situation. It is better to offer reassurance such as, “everything will be alright”, or, “we can sort this out, the first thing is for you to sit down”.

If the young person has a grievance, it is appropriate to sympathise with them. For example if someone has spilled some paint on a new jumper the young person may be upset and apprehensive about the consequences at home. Say to them, “I can see why you are upset, that is a lovely jumper.

Here is what we can do”.

Nine times out of ten however, the right solution is to insist on your instruction and let the student know they can discuss the matter with you after the lesson or after school.

Use your voice to lead the emotional level down. Your voice may raised at first to get attention and to reflect the urgency of the situation. As you go on speaking begin to drop your voice to a lower level. This takes advantage of the trance- like state that angry people can be in. As you bring your voice down they are likely to follow. If they display new rush of emotion bring your voice up slightly again and then bring it down once more. It is difficult for a person to remain upset when they are conversing with someone who is staying obviously calm and soft voiced.

Similar considerations apply when you are addressing a whole class. Make sure you have silence before you speak even if it takes time to get it. Name the situation clearly. “There is too much noise in the room and some students are playing around. I want to give my attention to students who are doing their work, so I need to see everyone focussing on their work and I only want to hear partner voices.” It is often useful to use “ I “messages. “When I hear a lot of chatter and I see people out of their seats I am concerned that other students are not able to learn properly. I need you all to be making progress without being distracted. I hope that is clear. Now let’s get back to work”. Notice that the message is brief and linked to learning.

If necessary you can remind a whole class of the consequences of misbehaviour. “When there is talking under it is difficult for anyone to concentrate and learning is held up. So I need everyone concentrating on the work. I hope no one has any difficulty with that. If this level of talking carries on I will be issuing detention points and making phone calls home It can be useful to use simple gestures such as both hands held palm forward in the air to indicate that you want order. While you are talking you can lower both palms towards the floor to indicate that you want a low voice level.

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4.Follow up

Following lessons or other situations where there have been difficulties between you and an individual or a class make sure you follow up. If you have promised detentions or phone calls home make sure they are carried out. If you have used tactical ignoring create an opportunity to have a brief word with the students concerned. As we have said before with sanctions consistency is much more important than severity and following up disciplinary incidents is an important part of that consistency.

If you have individual concerns about any of the students involved follow up with their form teachers or Year Head or seek advice from the SENCO. This is useful in two ways; you will get more information and advice on working with the student or students concerned and the relevant school manager will get more information on the behaviour of those student(s) in class.

You will need to carry on your relationship with the students concerned in future lessons. It may be useful to have individual meetings with them and or their carers once tempers have cooled down.

We will discuss how to do that in the next booklet.

5. Review, vent and plan After a challenging episode its is always useful to reflect on it either on your own or with a colleague to consider how you might have managed it differently and how you might plan it out of your lesson next time around. You will get some ideas about planning for behaviour in booklet six. Difficult episodes are bound to occur: the important thing is to manage them as well as you can and to learn from each experience.

You may well be shaken or upset following a challenging episode with a class or an individual. As we observed above, being on the receiving end of anger or controlling your own emotions involves stress and strain to your mental, emotional and physiological well being. It is useful and healthy to sit with a colleague or a friend and talk it over to get it off your chest. Remember to be kind to yourself. You are not paid to be perfect; you are paid to be professional, do the best you can and learn from experience.

Managing Fights.

Disputes and fights between students are a fact of school life. As before, your job is to keep calm and restore order as quickly as possible. Here are some guidelines.

Before a fight issue short, sharp “stop” commands. (The student whose head turns first is the most likely to comply so direct him or her to another part of the room). This is one of the few times when it is a good idea to raise you voice. Fights tend to follow a pattern – build up, flare up – lull. The pattern may repeat itself so if students do not follow a “stop” order, wait for the next lull.

Once a fight has flared up do not intervene unless you feel safe to do so or if you feel that one of the students is at serious risk. Send for help then pay attention to making the area safe by clearing away chairs and other objects that may cause injury. Direct bystanders away from the fight so they are not providing an encouraging audience. As other staff arrive on the scene they should assist in clearing away the audience.

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If you do intervene make sure you give a verbal commentary on what you are doing, explain when you will stop using restraint and use the minimum amount of force compatible with everyone’s safety. Make a detailed subsequent note of what has occurred. If you are in a school where this happens with any frequency you should ask for appropriate training.

Following a fight keep the protagonists involved separate until they have had a chance to cool down.

It will take up to an hour before the adrenalin cocktail disperses so leave time before you start any investigative or restorative process with the students involved. Make sure witness statements are gathered as soon as possible.

Booklet 4 key points 1.

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It is quite natural for there to be conflict in the classroom. It is up to us as adults to manage those conflicts in a caring and professional way. everybody experiences feelings of ineffectiveness from time to time if you are in your first year of teaching, do not make any career decisions before Easter!

If you feel you have not won the hearts of your class focus on your lesson plans and on the routines that you are teaching your class. Relationships will follow Choose your attitude evaluate your performance against your success criteria rather than your feelings. take as much control of your work life balance as you can you are the student’s teacher, you are not their friend.

You cannot party and learn to teach at the same time! ask for help when you need it.

Blame the behaviour not the child use a problem solving approach in anger situations, manage your own emotions. Stand back, take long out breathes, drop your voice separate the behaviour you see from the young person behind it Ask for help when you need it.

Manage your own emotions If you have lost your own temper use your raised voice as a trigger to stop shouting and move away In difficult situations continue to follow procedures and routines Use scripts to help you manage difficult situations Distinguish between primary and secondary behaviour Review, Vent and plan as soon as you can after a confrontation In the run up to fights use sharp messages, send for help, clear bystanders and make the area safe Check the responses of fighting students to see who is most likely to be compliant If you make any physical interventions in a fight accompany them with a loud verbal commentary

Have a think about these questions; • What methods do you use to manage your own anger?

• What scripts do you use when managing challenging behaviour?

• Think of a situation that has arisen in the past and how you might handle it differently using these techniques.

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Chapter Three. The Behaviour Policy & Behaviour Plan and Routines This chapter is divided into two sections. In section A we deal with the school behaviour policy, the behaviour plan and its implementation. In section B we look at the classroom and school routines that support the operation of the behaviour plan.

Section A The behaviour policy The behaviour plan Rules Rewards Punishments and penalties Section B Routines defined Teaching specific routines The count down Sound levels Six steps for teaching routines Range of routines Using routines to improve behaviour and learning Using establishment periods Using routines in different locales Engage in your own routines Use routines to support supply staff

Section A The behaviour policy

Policies exist to inform and co-ordinate the actions of the members of an organisation. In the school behaviour policy you will find a description of what your rights and powers are as a teacher. You will also find what you are meant to be doing to support the behaviour and well-being of your students.

One reason that successful schools work well is that attention has been paid to a wide range of detailed routines. What sorts of routines are important to the behaviour policy? These are some of the things we see in a well-run school; • • •

students are met and greeted at the door each morning uniform is checked staff are on duty around the school at lesson breaks and lunchtimes 1

• • • •

registers are taken punctually non attendance is phoned home the-on call system works.

The school office sends positive credits and messages of concern to pupils’ homes.

At department or year level • students are met by the door at the beginning of each lesson • arrangements are in place for celebrating good behaviour as well as achievement.

• Clear routines for the start of lessons • “pairing” arrangements whereby teachers will “park” students who have not been able to work in their own classroom in that of a colleague • arrangements for detentions and conferring with students and parents • systems for liaising with heads of year and the special needs department where there is concern about individual students.

When all these systems work well there is likely to be good behaviour. When procedures are not followed things start to fray around the edges. A school can deteriorate surprisingly quickly when its systems are not followed properly. So for each individual teacher, the message is clear; read the behaviour policy and follow it. Do not be the one in your department or year group who does not bother with the rewards or who is continually late for lessons.

The Behaviour Plan.

The most important part of the behaviour policy is the behaviour plan. This explains the rules, rewards and sanctions used in the classroom and around the school. Most schools have a behaviour plan displayed around the school and in classroom. Here is an example:

Rules: Follow adult directions Arrive on time and be properly equipped Keep feet hands and objects to yourself No name calling or teasing If you make good choices you can expect Praise from adults Positive marks 50 positive marks = a phone call home 100 positive marks = a merit certificate 200 positive marks = a golden merit If you make poor choices you can expect An informal warning 2

A formal warning A mid-day detention After school detention Severe clause. If your behaviour is severely abusive or disruptive you will be removed immediately from the classroom.

Displaying the plan Most schools display the behaviour plan in classrooms. Make sure it is displayed prominently in your classroom in a location where both you are your students can see it. Sometimes just pointing at the plan is worth a thousand words. It also helps you to establish yourself if you refer to the plan when you are setting out your expectations or when it is necessary to issue warnings or sanctions.

Teach the plan and use the script Schools need to re-teach the behaviour plan to students at the beginning of each term. That is usually the job of senior staff in assemblies and year meetings. As a classroom teacher you may want to reinforce that message and you will also need to review and remind students of your routines. A term is a long time in the life of a young person. No student should ever be more than six weeks away from a reminder of your and the school’s expectations.

Once the behaviour plan has been established, teacher language continually refers to the plan in order to produce classroom compliance, “Sally, you know the rule and you know the consequences so you need to make a good choice” Reviewing the Behaviour Plan Regular review of the behaviour plan is a statutory requirement. More important it is essential to the smooth running of the school. As schools develop, the needs and priorities of students and staff change. Make sure that you engage with such reviews.

Now let’s carefully review the main items of the behaviour plan and look at how they are implemented.

Rules.

The school rules are a set of assertive statements. It is best to have them framed positively focussing on the target behaviour. For example, “walking in the corridor” is a better statement that “no

running in the corridor” because it describes the target behaviour. It also allows staff easily to congratulate students when they do the right thing.

It is quite difficult to frame a rule about verbal abuse positively so schools often use phrases like “no teasing or name calling”. It is important to tailor the rules to your state of development as a school and to review them regularly. For example, in a poorly organised school that is setting out on the road to improvement, you may want a blunt rule such as, “no fighting or cussing”. Such a rule would not be appropriate once better standards of behaviour have been established.

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The first rule is usually something like “follow adult directions”, or “follow adult directions first time given”. The other rules are likely to be a list of “givens”, such as being on time or carrying the right equipment. The rules apply at all times. If you have special routines that apply to particular locations, for example, the dining hall or individual classrooms, they can be displayed as a set of rules for that location or included in the classroom routines that we will describe later.

It is best to have a maximum of five major school rules. We want the rules to be memorable and five is the largest number that most staff and students are likely to remember. In the behaviour policy there may be more detailed regulations concerning items like dress codes or prohibited areas, but the displayed rules should focus on the central expectations of the school.

Rewards Rewards are central to the behaviour plan. We have already discussed the importance of achieving a positive balance of rewards to punishments. We need penalties to limit behaviour, but we need rewards to build behaviour. In the above plan the phrase, “if you make good choices” is prominently displayed. This acts to remind students that they have choices to make. The aim is to help students see the connection between their behaviour and its consequences. Acknowledgment and rewards are essential for shaping and building behaviour. A good rule of thumb for both verbal rewards and awards is that they should outweigh penalties and reprimands by a ratio of 5:1.

Intangible rewards – praise. The most widely used rewards are intangible acknowledgements like teacher recognition and praise. This ranges from “well done”, through names on the board under a smiley face to phone calls home. Getting this praising behaviour right is quite a challenge. Teachers often feel under pressure in the classroom, anxious about the progress students are making and the pace of the lesson, worried about the lack of concentration or the misbehaviour of individual students; the last thing on their mind is praising anyone!

Another complicating fact is that a great deal of teacher-pupil interaction is governed by personality. We all know of a seemingly rather gruff teacher who is loved by her or his pupils who feel amply rewarded when they get the occasional piece of positive recognition.

Most of us however need to rely on some technique. Remembering to smile is possibly the simplest technique there is. In thousands of lesson observations I have never seen a genuine teacher smile fail to work. We can tie our smile to other techniques. We have already mentioned command praise times 3. Every time we give a significant command or instruction we immediately acknowledge three students who are carrying it out. That gives us several hundred opportunities to positively acknowledge appropriate behaviour.

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Many teachers use lollipop sticks or randomisers to make sure they include all the class in their questioning. That gives them an opportunity to acknowledge all the children in the class rather than just those who want to put their hands up all the time.

In primary schools teachers often use “pupil or pupils of the day”. Students who have made progress or behaved well get to sit on a special chair, or if they are younger, choose to sit with a particular soft toy. In secondary schools non-tangible rewards are more likely to be linked closely to teaching and learning; a student may be rewarded for “best question of the lesson”.

Catching them being good is a technique whereby the teacher looks at round the class at regular intervals and then notes students’ names under a smiley face on the board. This technique works really well but can sometimes be too distracting for the teacher to manage.

This task can be delegated to another adult in the room, such as a Teaching Assistant, with excellent results.

Earlier on we mentioned the issue of “plastic praise”. If our praise is too hurried or impersonal there is a danger that students will disregard it. We can avoid this by making sure that our praise is personal and specific. We are praising a particular pupil for having achieved some part of our general expectation or our plan for this lesson. “Abdi, you have really concentrated and focussed during this session, and I can see that you have organized those elements really well”.

Some students may be embarrassed by the praise they receive. One way to cope with that is by moving from the praise to the next task. “Abdi, you have really concentrated and focussed during this session, and I can see that you have organized those elements really well. The next job is to find out why they become more reactive as we move across the table.” This technique is sometimes referred to in the teaching literature as “medal and mission”. The student is told what they have done well and then told what the next step is.

Positive Phone Calls.

“Hello Mrs. Jones. This is Mr. Baker from the school. I am ringing to let you know that Susan has had a terrific first half of term. She is keen and eager and is inspiring other students as well. Would you let her know?”

“I certainly will, thank you very much Mr. Baker” “Good night” “Goodnight” That’s all it takes, just a few seconds on the phone. Why is it so powerful?

Parents and carers usually expect bad news from school. They are pleased and delighted when they get good news about their children. They will pass on the positive news to their

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son or daughter providing a good deal of secondary reinforcement. Their son or daughter will tell their classmates who will want to earn a positive phone call as well.

It also helps in forming a strong relationship with the student’s parents/carers.

In some departments teachers form a rota to make positive phone calls. Some schools use automated SMS to send texts from the school office and they are claimed to work just as well.

Schools have particular policies about who can make phone calls home and may rule against phone calls to particular homes or groups of home, so make sure you consult your school policy.

Tangible rewards. Tangible rewards is the term we use for all those awards ranging from stars and stickers through to vivo points and even cash awards. One school was in the news for improving truancy by hiring a set of stretch limousines for students to go home in if they had a term’s perfect attendance! Tangible rewards excite strong passions in staffrooms.

Some people think they are a useful addition to a school’s armoury, others think they amount to little more than bribery. In this section we will look at some arguments in favour of tangible rewards.

They act as secondary reinforcement. When students take home their awards and rewards they are often highly valued by their families. For young people who are not high achievers, they may be the only awards they ever receive from school.

They build trust. Some young people do not trust adults, often as a result of difficult or abusive experiences in the past. It takes a lot for them to trust teachers and school staff..

Tangible tokens show that we say what we mean and mean what we say.

Tangible act as extrinsic motivators. Some children and some adults are more motivated by external reward than by praise or the intrinsic nature of the tasks they are working on. Just notice how you feel next time you get a pay rise!

Tangible rewards have symbolic worth. Most rewards are inexpensive and their value is more symbolic than real. They are an effective way of showing appreciation.

They can be used to increase group motivation. A primary level favourite is “marbles in a jar”. The whole class has a target behaviour and every time the teacher spots someone or the whole group doing the right thing, she puts a marble in the jar. When the jar is full the whole class get a reward or treat.

In some schools staff take the view that their students grow out of rewards. Primary teachers will say they don’t work so well with years five and six, and secondary teachers will say they don’t work so well above year nine. However, it is usually possible to visit a neighbouring school in the same catchment area where the students in every year are 6

responding well to rewards and incentives. The key factor is the commitment of the staff to the reward system.

Whatever your view, if you use a reward system, make sure you use it consistently and fairly. Young people are very alert to justice. If a reward system is school policy, make sure you follow it.

Punishments and penalties Why use penalties? In behavioural theory any consequence that reduces a behaviour is a punishment. As any parent knows, sometimes a simple word is sufficient. When that does not work adults need to be more emphatic when setting a limit to a behaviour or stopping it. To quote Lee and Marlene Canter, “Corrective actions must be something that students do not like, but they must never be physically or psychologically harmful�. (p63) In schools this usually takes the form of loss of time and company via detentions.

Over use of penalties Generally in school we over-use penalties. We can infer this from the current high levels of in - school and inter - school variation. In any one school it will usually be the case that some teachers or departments eject more students from their classrooms and use more detentions than others. This may be because of the levels of experience of the staff, the range of needs presented by the students or simply because a group of children set out to test the limits imposed by the school.

In the same way, between schools in similar catchment areas there is often considerable variation in exclusion rates. As it is unlikely that children in different schools have different dispositions, it is more likely to do with the way different schools manage behaviour. One school will use a high rate of punishment while a nearby school does not see the need to.

Whatever the reason, high levels of punishment are generally associated with high levels of misbehaviour. So how can we ensure that the punishments we use are both proportionate and effective?

Consistency, not severity. Teachers often want stronger punishment. We feel instinctively that stronger punishment will produce better behaviour. However, there is no evidence at all for this. Rather the reverse; in schools with high levels of punishment there are usually high levels of misbehaviour. What does work is a combination of light penalties enforced with a high level of consistency. If young people know that infringements of the rules will be met with appropriate penalties with a high level of consistency, they are likely to respond. It is not the severity of the response that counts; it is the consistency.

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A hierarchy of sanctions. Most school organise their sanctions in a hierarchy. The response to misbehaviour is likely to start with an informal warning, then a formal warning and then a series of gradually increasing penalties. The idea is to send a clear and increasingly strong message. There are several advantages to using a hierarchy: •

It quickly draws attention to low level behaviour. Students are informally warned before matters escalate

•

It provides certainty. The teacher is clear about what to do and is less likely to hesitate, increasing their own frustration and confusing the student.

•

It allows low level misbehaviour to be dealt with before it reaches the realm of punishment. Informal warning can include a quiet word, a searching look or the teacher simply standing closer to the student(s) concerned.

We recently had the opportunity to watch a training day when a secondary teacher, a Head of Year, was giving a demonstration to the rest of the staff of the school of how he used the sanctions hierarchy in his room. He told his audience.

“I might have to ask a student to be quiet because she is talking to the other kids around her and causing a disturbance. So I say to her, ‘Amelia, I need you to be quiet and listening actively, otherwise I am not able to introduce the lesson properly’. She might quieten down a bit and then start chatting again. So I say to her calmly, ‘Amelia, I am giving you a warning, I need you to be quiet so I can introduce the lesson’. She then says, ‘Well I don’t care about your warning, you’re picking on me.’ Colleagues, what should I do next?”

Several members of the audience shout out, ‘Give her another warning of course’.

The Head of Year then says. “No. I don’t give her another warning. I do not want her to shift her attention to having a fight with me. I want to keep her focussed on what the expected behaviour is. So I say to her, ‘Amelia, everyone in the class has a right to learn, and that includes you. Right now, you need to quieten down’. She stops talking but ostentatiously kisses her lips at me. What should I do then?”

Member of audience. “That’s insolence, give her another warning”.

The Head of Year then says, “No, I won’t give her another warning yet. She has complied with my original request. I don’t want to get hung up with her secondary behaviour.

Anyway, I think she is just trying to save face after climbing down. I will shift my attention now to another student who is doing the right thing. I will get an opportunity to talk with her about her secondary behaviour later in the day when she does not have an audience. Of course, if she talks out again I will have to move to a second warning. However, I am also going to be alert to see when she starts doing some work because I will want to acknowledge and reinforce that right away.”

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In the above example, the Head of Year is modelling working slowly through the hierarchy of sanctions because he wants to avoid escalating too quickly. Why? Because if the situation escalates too quickly it simply turns into a trial of strength between him and the student.

The student’s learning then becomes fixed on how to win the engagement rather than on choosing the outcome with the least cost attached to it. In this situation the teacher needs to keep his or her personality out of it and be a vehicle for the behaviour plan.

The Severe Clause Most sanction hierarchies have a Severe Clause. This is meant for those situations where a student is immediately removed from the room as a result of extremely disruptive or abusive behaviour, for example, a physical assault or racial or extreme verbal abuse. In such circumstances a first warning would be too weak a response.

The hierarchy – pros and cons The sanction hierarchy needs to be used with care. An impatient teacher can use it as an escalator to remove students from the room in the first twenty minutes of the lesson!

Another point to note is that some students can learn to fly just below the radar. For example, they might always disrupt the first part of the lesson and receive the first two warnings and then quickly improve their behaviour for the rest of the lesson. This situation can be exacerbated where students are allowed to earn back positive points if they have incurred penalties in the first part of a lesson. So we need to manage the system properly.

For example, if a student is consistently getting through two warnings each lesson the teacher may meet with them and say that for a fortnight that student will only get one informal and one formal warning before a detention so they get better at managing their behaviour. Or they might have a discussion with their whole form about what is good about the behaviour system and what needs improving about it, carefully reflecting the class’s behaviour back to them.

There are some schools that do not use a hierarchy; they simply suggest a range of sanctions that teachers might use in different circumstances, and leave it up to them. The important point is that the school and individual teachers have to actively manage their behaviour systems.

Tactical ignoring An important teacher skill is to tactically ignore inappropriate behaviour. This seems at first sight to contradict what we have said about picking up low level misbehaviour so we need to consider the idea carefully. Tactical ignoring relies on distinguishing between primary and secondary behaviour. For example, a teacher asks a student to move to another part of the room. They refuse the request. The teacher asks them a second time and they comply, but on the way across the room they mutter something under their breath and then they sit down. The teacher is faced with a dilemma. If they challenge the muttering behaviour it may well be denied and may entertain the rest of the class. If they let it go they may feel they have been made a fool of. One solution is this. If the teacher decides to tactically ignore an 9

unwanted behaviour they must follow it up with the student in a one to one meeting as soon after the event as possible. The meeting can be brief; the important thing is that it happens away from the classroom without an audience.

Teacher: Tom, I was pleased that you moved when I asked you to in class this morning. I need to let you know that in future I will not ignore it if you grumble under your breath at me. Do you understand?

Tom: Alright Sir Tactical ignoring is a useful technique, but you always have other options. For example, if the muttering is too loud and insulting you might give the young person another sanction or immediately have a word with them outside in the corridor.

In either event, you will be on the look-out for an opportunity to catch that student being good as soon as you can.

Time out In behavioural theory we can reduce a behaviour by penalising it or by ignoring it. Ignoring behaviour is a difficult thing to do in an interactive environment like a school. Some schools use time – out rooms where a student is taken away from the audience and given time to reflect: usually for five or ten minutes. These can work well, providing all staff understand the purpose of the room and do not treat it as an additional venue for “telling off” a student. The same principle applies as with penalties; it is the consistency that matters, not the severity.

Perverse reward There are a number of circumstances where punishments turn into rewards. For example, a child causing problems in the playground or classroom is removed to the school office or head teachers office where they can watch all the interesting things going on; or maybe get to do some drawing. In badly stressed schools students may agree to misbehave at a certain time of day so they can all meet up in the time out room. The school may have appointed a highly skilled teacher to manage the behaviour of students who have been sent out of class and they find themselves in a more stimulating and engaging environment than the classroom. Again, we need to manage the behaviour plan. If we want to reduce behaviour we penalize or ignore it. If we want to increase behaviour we reward it Misbehaviour as an indicator. Behaviour problems often arise because young people are insufficiently engaged or because they are distracted by other unmet needs. For example, a child who does not get on well in class because they cannot read properly may cause the teacher problems. Significant number of students may find it difficult to engage with the curriculum. Persistent poor behaviour always points to unmet needs.

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The Effectiveness of Behaviour Plans Effective and successful schools have clear behaviour policies and clear and consistently applied behaviour plans. They work well because they coordinate the actions of adults and because students know where they stand. “The behaviour in our school was awful. Children come from very difficult and stressed backgrounds and many of them have no parental control at home. Last term there were lots of teenagers roaming the corridors during lessons being openly abusive to adults who told them to go back to their classrooms. In lessons it was difficult to teach. Students would constantly talk under and shout out and it was common for them to use mobile phones during the lesson to send texts to their friends.

We got a new head teacher and the first thing she did was to ensure that senior staff regularly patrolled the corridors. They were gradually able to assert their authority by a combination of talking to the students, exclusions, phone calls home and placing children in an exclusion room. The next step was to devise a proper behaviour plan. We had several staff meetings to decide on the behaviour plan, and then we spent six weeks teaching it to the students. We held Year assemblies and class assemblies. We went into great detail. For example, students were told it was OK to have a mobile phone in school but it had to be out of sight and switched off during lessons. If a member of staff saw a mobile phone it would be confiscated and returned at the end of the day. If a student refused to surrender their mobile phone they would go straight to the head teacher. We made a great impact by getting the office staff and some of the teaching assistants to explain parts of the plan so that the children in the school knew that everyone wanted them to do well. We also got older children to teach parts of the plan. In addition we had meetings with particular groups of children and explained the working of the plan to them. We started the plan working at the beginning of the term and I have been amazed at the different in behaviour in the classrooms. I have not seen a mobile phone this term! I would never have believed it was possible. We can teach again.

Of course, we have done some other things as well, such as giving concentrated support to the children who have difficulty with their reading. But it was that detailed teaching of the behaviour plan that allowed us to get control of our school again.� Account given to authors of change in a secondary school.

Section B Routines.

Routines Defined Teaching specific routines The count down Sound levels Six steps for teaching routines Range of routines Using routines to improve behaviour and learning Principles underlying routines Using establishment periods Using routines in different locales Engage in your own routines Use routines to support supply staff 11

Routines defined Routines are clear and detailed instructions on keys patterns of behaviour expected in particular circumstance. The general school rules are universal positive statements. All through the school day we want students to follow instructions, be on time and properly equipped. Routines on the other hand apply to all the procedures that apply in different rooms, such as classrooms or workshops and different times of day, lesson time, break, lunchtime etc.

For example, in your classroom you will have a whole range of routines that apply right from when students line up outside your door through to when they pack and leave the lesson. Some of the routines will cover simple traffic management issues like putting bags and coats away across to more complicated routines that are central to learning such as voice levels, talking partners and peer evaluation. One of the secrets of successful teachers is that they have worked out all the routines they need in the classroom and taught them to their students. If their lessons are not proceeding as they want, they review which routines need re-working or re-teaching.

So routines

• • •

Are local and belong to particular groups of children and adults Are where behaviour and learning meet Are flexible and need continual review

Teaching specific routines. In order to teach routines properly you have to know precisely what you want. Routines involve traffic management routines (lining up, clearing away, and leaving a row at a time) and learning routines (talking partners, hands up or down, appropriate voice levels, seating plans).

All routines should be justified in terms of learning and safety and implemented so that learning is improved. For example, meeting students at the door, checking uniform and equipment, greeting them and saying a few words about what to do when they are inside the room is the first step to establishing a learning atmosphere in the classroom.

Routines also cover unexpected or unwelcome events. For example, there needs to be a routine for late arrivals, (sign in the late book, wait until asked to sit down). As trust builds between you and your students you can involve them in reviewing your routines and discussing how to make them more effective.

Let’s look at two of our most important routines, the count-down and appropriate sound levels.

The count-down One of our main faults as teachers is that we talk too much in the classroom. We know that children need to process information and then relate it to what they already know in order to grasp new concepts. An important way for them to do this is to work through material on their own or to talk with their fell-students. Yes research tells us that teachers take up over 12

90% of the talking time in the classroom. We also know that the average time between a teacher asking a question and then providing a prompt themselves is less than four seconds.

Teachers use count-downs, usually from five to one, quite frequently in the classroom. The count- down serves two purposes. The first is to give young people a chance to finish what they are saying. It is irritating and dispiriting when you are interrupted when you are talking, just as much for students as it is for us. The second reason is that we have often set students discussion of investigation tasks. The added time afford by a count-down gives them a chance to formulate their answer or explanation. All this needs explaining to students. This will usually involve explaining the procedure and giving it a rationale and practising it several times so that students know what we want. We may need to remind our class of that routine and then we need to acknowledge them fulsomely when they get it right.

Depending on the maturity of your students you may want to be quite specific about what you want when you get down to “one”. Students should be listening to you in silence, with their shoulders and knees pointed in your direction and their hands folded on the desk. You may want to give this kind of listening a name such as, ‘active listening’.

Of course, you may not always want to use a count-down. Some activities require you to get your students attention quickly, in which case you might want to use an aural signal such as tapping a coin on a cup or using a rain – stick, or a visual signal such holding a hand up. It is important to note that once you have established a signal you should stick to it so that you do not confuse your students.

Six Step pattern for teaching routines. In our classrooms we have a number of set routines.

Some of them will be to do with simple traffic management such as putting bags and coats away and tidying up at the end of lessons and some of them will be more directly related to creating the conditions for learning, such as establishing a countdown to get silence and some of them will be directly related to learning such as using talking partners or peer marking. Consistently repeated routines are an excellent way of establishing common standards of behaviour and they need careful teaching. Here is a six step pattern for teaching routines: 1.Define the behaviour – “I want to explain how I will use a countdown while I am teaching” 2.Explain why it is important– “It is important that you talk to each other a lot to develop your understanding. I will provide a count-down so you can finish what you are saying and have your answer or conclusion.

3. Demonstrate - “I will count down from five, like this 5,4,3,2,1.”

4. Rehearse “Now lets give it a go”.

5. Re-teach if necessary . “That was good, let’s do it one more time” 6. Check for understanding – “ok, discuss with your talking partner the key points of the count-down and then we will do it one more time and I will invite an explanation of the count-down from you.

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Sound Levels. Next we introduce the idea of different sound levels.

Tell students that when you give your signal, you want them to turn to their neighbour and tell them what they were doing the previous evening. Tell them that you want them to use whisper voices, so their neighbour can hear what they are saying, but nobody else can. Then invite them to practise the technique. After a few moments interrupt them with your signal for attention (putting the signal for attention to work right away) and give them some feedback. ‘That was very good. I think that you can make it even quieter. Imagine that your previous sound level was about notch three on a sound system. I would like you to practise again, but his time at notch one.’ You will notice that on the second time around the students perform the whisper voice sound level with much greater proficiency.

There are two other sound levels to teach. We have to teach the students what ‘silence’ is.

We do this by repeating the above procedure except we invite the class to listen to the ambient noise, ‘the sound the room makes’. Last of all, we have to teach ‘table voices’ .This is the sound level appropriate to a class on task where students may be grouped around tables exchanging ideas. We may also want to put a colour chart on the wall, where silence is golden, amber is for whisper voices, green is for table talk and red is for too loud. When we are giving our sound instructions we can point to the chart as a reminder of our expectations.

Some other key routines are:• • • • • • • • • • •

arriving at the classroom, entering, procedure for late arrival to lesson preparing for work (e.g. diaries out, equipment on desk, books away), seating plan, seating positions (e.g. facing teacher during teacher presentations, shoulders and knees towards teacher), talking partners, transitions (e.g. getting equipment out), hands up/down, clearing up, exiting the room.

Principles underlying the teaching of routines Use establishment periods to teach routines. The term ‘establishment period’ refers to those times when classes are receptive to discussion, they may occur at the beginning of the 14

year or term or at calm moments in the life of a class when you can introduce or reinforce your expectations, sometimes by congratulating them on how well they are doing. In other words, explain your expectations when the going is good, not as part of a telling off.

Relate your routines to student learning. Justify your routines in term of the success students will achieve so they know what’s in it for them Reminders at good moments. Take advantage of times when students are working well or preparing for a change of activity to let them know how well they are doing or reminding them of what they need be doing in the next activity. For example, “By the way, this is a great calm working atmosphere, thank you all very much. You are behaving like a roomful of scientists/mathematicians, artists.”

“We are going to be having a group discussion later in the lesson, think for a moment about how we have discussions and I will ask some people to remind us.”

Pre-teach or re-teach your routines to individual students. You know that some students will have difficulty with some of your routines. Take the time to explain you routines to them separately. Don’t wait until the misbehaviour starts.

Involve colleagues where appropriate. If you are anxious that you will not be able to get a hearing from a class involve another adult in explain your expectations.

Use your routines as script for meetings and reviews. “Josh, remind me of the rules for class discussion”. Using disciplinary meetings as an opportunity to teach rules and routines and to check for understanding works better than spending too much time lecturing them about how “disappointed” you are.

Using routines to Improve behaviour and learning. We may be unhappy with the behaviour of a class and not sure of how to proceed. One way to turn the situation around is to visualise what the class would be like if things were going well and then to systematically teach the routines that would lie behind that improved behaviour. This would constitute a mini behaviour syllabus and would have to be unfolded over time. Here is a set of routines agreed by a set of newly appointed staff who had been appointed turn around the learning and behaviour of a failing department.

Clear routines and good teacher and student technique produce great lessons!

Lesson phase

Routines & techniques

Purpose

Starting the lesson

Line up outside. Enter room in silence

No wasted time. Easy for teacher to

and either stand behind desk or work

explain what is happening

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on starter you have been given.

So that students can study or learn Sound levels – silent, partner voice or

from each other. Student talk is vital

table voice So learners know what to do and how Objectives and graded outcomes are

to do it

explained So that everyone is involved Hands up and down rules So that students can learn from each Seating plan Main phase of lesson

Talking partners

other

So that all students have opportunities to give and receive opinions

So that students can be ready to Count downs

answer.

So that teachers and students can know how much progress they making

Peer and teacher assessment

So students can compare work with each other.

Plenary points End of lesson

Summaries by teachers or students

To make knowledge stick

Homework

To practice new skills

Lesson Assessment

To help teacher plan for next lesson

In the above case the routines were taught using the rationale provided in the third column

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Using Routines in Different Locales.

Everything that has been said so far applies equally to locations outside the classroom. The management of behaviour in school corridors, the playground, the canteen and the playing fields is just as important in terms of well-being and safety. Unless clear routines are established, taught and enforced in all those area there will be shoving in the lunch queue, accidents in the corridors and opportunities created for bullying. This not only affects pupil safety and well-being; it is also likely to spill into the classroom.

Behaviour around the school also provides an opportunity for increasing student participation and responsibility. Students of all ages can be trained as big brothers or sisters, guardian angels, mentors and monitors and prefects. As well as improving social cohesion and learning, there is an opportunity to teach young people a range of personal and social skills.

Engage in your own routines. Especially when you are establishing yourself, lessons work better if you do the same things in the same order. Meet, great, equipment out, starter ready, timer on board, register, introduce main activity etc.

You may find it useful to get students to assist you in the routine running of the classroom.

On a rota basis students may be in charge of giving out books and equipment, checking timings for the lesson, monitoring the door to deal with unexpected visitors.

Supply Staff. Once you have your own class you may want to teach them some routines for looking after supply staff and cover staff (two students introduce themselves, offer to help with names and equipment). After cover lessons staff you can find out how well it went and congratulate your class when they have done well.

5 Ways to Keep Miss Jones Happy Personalising your expectations works well in building trust. One way of doing it is to make a list describing the five ways to keep you happy in the classroom.

ACTIVITY: What would you write on your list?

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5 Ways to Keep ___________________________ Happy 

Follow the signal for attention...



Follow sound level guidance...

  

Once you have this list you can introduce it to the whole class, or use it when you have one to one discussion with young people – “let’s have a look at this list and then you tell me what we need to do to keep me happy”.

Chapter 3 key points

Section A Behaviour Policy and Plan 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

Read the school behaviour policy Display the behaviour plan in your classroom Use the plan to support your instructions No student should ever be more than six weeks away from a reminder of yours and the schools expectations.

Engage with behaviour policy reviews Maximum five rules Frame rules positively Five positives to one negative Importance of intangible reward Command praise times 3 Catch them being good Avoid plastic praise Move from praise to next task – “medal and mission” Use positive phone calls 18

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

Use tangible reinforcement consistently High levels of punishment are associated with high levels of misbehaviour With penalties consistency is more importantly than severity Manage sanction hierarchy with care: it is not a conveyor belt!

Tactical ignoring must involve follow-up Time Out is not an opportunity for telling off!

Make sure your own actions are not perversely rewarding student misbehaviour Treat persistent misbehaviour as an indicator

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

Section B Routines Routines are specific to particular situations and times If classes are not running well review your routines Routines need to be specific Use count downs and sound level routines to manage classroom sound levels Teach routines when the going is good Relate them to learning Remind students of routines at appropriate moments Pre-teach or re-teach routines to individuals Involve colleagues where appropriate Use routines as script for meetings and reviews Personalise you routines Use establishment periods for reinforcing or introducing routines

Some questions for you to consider:

• • •

Have you read your school’s behaviour policy?

Do you have an explicit behaviour plan displayed in your classroom and how have you shared it with your learners? What more do you need to do to ensure the plan is understood?

Are your classroom routines effective and what might you do to improve them?

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Chapter 2 Assertiveness The assertive adult in the classroom is a major factor in creating a positive learning environment. In this chapter we will explore • • • • • •

Assertiveness Assertive Rights and values Assertive Scripts Voice Management Body language Limits & Rewards

What is Assertiveness?

Assertiveness means being able to affirm your beliefs and opinions in a confident and assured way. It carries the implication that you will often get your way without creating undue conflict or compromising your beliefs. Assertive behaviour is often contrasted with passive or aggressive behaviour. When we behave passively we do not stand up for our rights and beliefs. When we behave aggressively we are too strident and trample on the rights of others.

In the last fifty years it has been recognized that assertiveness rests on a set of transferrable learned skills. We can consciously focus on our beliefs and values and we can learn the words, gestures and movements that we need to be effective and influential.

Assertive behaviour is strongly linked with positivity. The best way to create authority is to be clear about your expectations, optimistic about the ability of students to meet them and then to acknowledge appropriate behaviour. When we behave in this manner, students will generally respond positively.

Passive and aggressive beliefs and behaviours We can contrast assertiveness with passive and aggressive behaviour. Passive behaviour involves denying our own beliefs and values and being prepared to be treated like a doormat. Aggressive behaviour means putting our own needs first, trampling on the rights of others and being prepared to bulldozer through with our own point of view. The diagram shows how these three rights and belief sets compare with each other Passive

Assertive

Aggressive

Rights

I do not have rights

I have the right to do or say what I want

Beliefs

Nobody listens to me Others know best

I have a right to say no I have a right to express my feelings I have a right to teach Children have a right to learn And the right not to be assertive when it does not suit me!

I am responsible for what happens to me, I can change

Attack is the best form of defense

1

Behaviours ( In school) Typical Scripts (in school)

Other people’s needs are more important than mine Children should find their own way and not be upset I must be perfect Timid. No firm rules or clear system How many times do I have to tell you…”

“Im sick and tired of….”

“Why aren’t you working””

I can teach children how to behave I can initiate actions to achieve results Firm. Clear rules, reward and acknowledgement, consistent and appropriate penalties “Well done Michael..

“Jane, I want you to stop talking and get on with your work now”

Other people cannot be trusted to do a good job I know best Children should be seen and not heard Erratic. Shouting, sarcastic.

Severe and unpredictably enforced penalties “If you act like a fool in class I’ll treat you like a fool”.

“If you don’t knuckle down you’ll be sorry

Assertive Scripts.

Scripts are prepared pieces of conversation. They allow you to handle situations in a clear and firm manner without having to worry about what to say next. Look at this interaction: Teacher: Jo, I need you to sit down in your chair and start your work.

Student: Miss, I’m talking to Yana about the work.

Teacher: I see that. Right now, I need you to sit down in your own chair and get on with your work.

Student: Yana’s helping me.

Teacher: The instruction was to work on your own. I need you to sit down in your chair and start your work.

Student: but Miss…

Teacher: I need you to sit down in your chair and start your work. Thankyou.

The teacher’s script has several important features.

Brief sentences. She does not go in for long preambles. She use sentence stems like “I need you to…..” or “I want you too…” so she gets straight to the matter at hand.

Focus on target behaviour. The target behaviour is her main script. There is no doubt at all about what she wants.

Repetition She is like a cracked gramophone. Repeating the instruction provides her with plenty of script. It also means she does not argue with the student. She has realized that it is not possible to win arguments with young people!

Acknowledgement of Hooks When the student raises an objection she acknowledges it and then on with her instruction!

Positive. When the student complies the teacher acknowledges the fact.

Now that is one form of assertive script. Notice the underlying message that comes through. This teacher appears to be calm and in charge and she knows her rights. Fundamentally, assertiveness involves a strong sense of our own rights and the rights of others. Often the first place to look is at the scripts we are using.

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A Range of Scripts When we are working in dynamic situations with lots of young people we need to have a repertoire of scripts so that we don’t have to spend our whole time thinking of what to say. Have a look through the following sets of scripts and see which ones you might find useful. When you find scripts that you want to use learn them and practice them mentally Scripts using simple target language. Used to give praise and to make clear your needs and wants.

“I’m very pleased that you got your assignment in on time”.

“I would like you to start work within 30 seconds of entering the class”.

Scripts involving empathy. In which you acknowledge the feelings and wants of others particularly when they may be busy or under pressure.

“I do appreciate the difficulty of meeting all the deadlines for course work, but I really do need you to work hard to keep to them”.

This type of message may be perceived as sarcasm and may, in fact, be disguising aggression. Make sure your deadlines and standards set appropriately.

Scripts naming the rule. For example, instead of getting angry if you are sworn at, simply say, “Inappropriate language, leave the room and see me for after school detention”, (or whatever the sanction is in your school).

Scripts involving the whole class. We can use these when we want to defer getting into confrontation with an individual student.

“Ok everyone, let’s make sure that we have got our caps and bags put away before we start work”.

Scripts involving “I” language. This draws the attention of another person to the undesirable effect their behaviour is having on you. It can contain the following elements: 1.When ...(an objective description of others’ behaviour – “ When I see students playing games at the back of the room..”)

2.The effects are... (how that behaviour specifically affects you and others. “... I notice it stops you learning, it puts other people off their work and it makes it harder for me to teach..”)

3.I feel... (a description of your feelings. “I find it distracting and irritating”) 4.I’d like...(a statement of what you prefer “I’d like you to focus on the work without playing”) This is a useful technique when you are experiencing feelings of anger and hostility. It gives you the opportunity to express those feeling openly without making an uncontrolled outburst. It enables you to take responsibility for your feelings, and alerts the other person to the effects of their behaviour.

Depending on the class or institutional ethos you may choose to omit the “I feel” part and simply talk of the effects of the students’ behaviour.

Scripts using the broken record This is the skill of being able to repeat, over and over again, in an assertive and relaxed manner, what it is you want or need, until the other person gives in or agrees to negotiate with you.

It is a skill useful for: I) Situations where your time and energy are precious; ii) Dealing with situations where your rights are in danger of being abused: iii) Situations where you are likely to lose your self-confidence because you could be affected by ‘put-downs’.

“If you call out/are late/verbally abuse people again I will ....... (apply a sanction). I would prefer you to work quietly/arrive on time/talk politely.”

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Scripts involving an escalation of sanction In the classroom you will need a hierarchy of sanctions to assist in managing behaviour. Here is a set of scripts that will allow you to calmly manage those sanctions.

“Continue with your work...thank you.’

‘I asked you to continue with your work.’

‘I need you to continue with your work now.’

‘If you do not continue with your work I shall keep you behind for the length of time it takes for you to start.’

You may then note the time of the request, walk away from the student but keep an eye on when they start. As soon after they have started as practicable use appropriate praise Scripts using “Fogging” Fogging assists staff and students by giving them a specific way to handle calmly abuse and put downs. Think of yourself as a fog bank and think of criticism as a rock. When a rock is thrown at the fog bank, the fog is in no way damaged. The fog bank does not throw the rock back either. Thus the use of fogging technique enables the recipient to remain untouched by the criticism. It can be used when someone is “putting you down”, or “winding you up”.

1. If a statement is definitely true you simply agree e.g.

‘You have big feet’ - statement ‘You’re right I have’ - answer 2 .If what is said could or could not be true you say it could be true, e.g.

‘You have the biggest feet I’ve ever seen’ - statement ‘That could be true’ – answer.

Three part messages We can often make our message clearer by embedding it in a three part message •

• •

The first part of a three part message is the introduction or greeting. At this point we need to establish empathy. Say something positive or refer to a positive attribute the other person possesses. If we do not do this the other person is likely not to listen or to immediately react defensively.

The second part of the message conveys the instruction, information or invitation that you wish to convey. Wherever possible this needs to be thought out in advance and put simply.

The third part of the message sums up the agreement or instruction and conveys the expectation of success. Here are some very simple messages with good and poor examples:

Positive opening (Good) Morning everyone (Poor) Everyone shut up

Positive direction I need you all to take a seat Sit down

Acknowledgement Thank you class Right we can get on now

(Good) John, you are working well today (Poor) John!

I want you to move seats – next to Mark Get over there

Thank you very much At last

The use of Positive Direction usually involves a positive opening, followed by a positive direction and concludes with an acknowledgement that the direction has been followed. When we are in a hurry, or not thinking about it, we give negative directions without acknowledging the students’ success in doing as they were told.

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Pointless Questions Poorly thought out questions are rarely effective. Too often we ask questions such as, “Why are you late?”, “Why are you misbehaving?”. What do we expect the students to say? “I am sorry Sir, I am socially inadequate and need to improve my punctuality?”. Before we have built up trust with students the only two questions worth asking are, “Where are you meant to be?”, and “What are you meant to be doing?” These questions imply a definite answer and they can be repeated easily.

Once you have built up trust you can ask more structured questions such as, “what is the effect of your behaviour on those around you? But if there is not already some trust, we will not get the answers we want!

Locus of Power and choice of script The behaviour of young people varies from situation to situation and time to time. Sometimes young people want to test out the limits to their behaviour, to find out how much power they can employ.

At other times they can be cooperative and engaging. Similarly in the classroom young people can be trying as when a whole class starts playing “cat and mouse” with a teacher taking in turn to make comical noises. At other times misbehaviuor may be a reflection of deeply felt unhappiness such as when a young person is reacting to being teased or bullied. We need to adjust the way we react to these different situations.

A useful concept in thinking about this is “locus of power”. There are times, particularly when we are starting with a new class when we want to make our expectations quite clear. We explain our rules and routines, check for understanding and then get on with it. In this case the locus of power rests with us. At other times we may have built more trust with a class and we are prepared to be more informal with them and encourage them to make choice or suggest procedures. The locus of power is then resting between us and the students. Or, we may need to talk with a student whose misbehaviour we believe masks an underlying problem, in which case we will be doing a lot of listening and seeking to increase the power of the student.

How can we judge the right response to make? We do this by reviewing our responses to situations and assessing how we feel. Did the way we handle the episode make us feel more secure or did it make us feel weaker or less in control? If our way of working does not make us feel secure, then we need to adjust our own behaviour

Voice management.

Scripts are more effective when they are delivered well. A message is considerably enhanced by the tone and manner in which it is delivered. For producing a calm atmosphere and for talking calmly with the individual student there is little to beat the low voice tone and the ear message. When a class is on task and you are circulating the room, drop your voice to nearly a whisper. Done well, this produces a ripple effect around the room. Equally, when you have something important to say to an individual student a literal “quiet word in the ear” not only conveys intensity and intention but also removes the audience of the rest of the class. This can be extremely useful, especially if you wish to re-direct or sanction a student’s behaviour.

If you face a challenge, leave a little pause before you reply. If we are nervous or anxious our throat is apt to change shape so that we squeak or rumble. A short pause allows our voice to go back to the right shape.

5

Teachers sometimes wish they had rich resonating voices that can reach the whole room and produce an admiring silence. Well, that is great if you can do it, but for most of us it is much more important to concentrate on • • •

the clarity of our diction, the brevity of our language and directing our voice at the furthest student when addressing the whole class

Modulation. Modulation refers to raising and lowering our tone as appropriate. We may need to raise our voice to get attention, then as soon as we have the students attention we lower our voice.

If we carry on in a high pitched tone we are simply inviting the students to talk under us.

Record yourself teaching in the classroom and then listen to yourself. This will help you get rid of the unnecessary “ums” and “shhoosh”s that can confuse our listeners.

If you are seriously concerned about your voice, two or three sessions with a voice coach are all it takes to make a marked difference to your voice production.

Body Language.

We convey a good deal of information about our emotional state from the way we move our body and position ourselves. So, how should we stand in the classroom?

A fairly still standing pose for explanations is a good idea. If we are gesticulating wildly or darting round we are likely to confuse our audience. Equally if we are too relaxed and draped across our desk we are unlikely to command authority.

Make sure you know your key positions in the classroom; greeting students at the door, teaching from a position at the front, circulating while students are at work. Moving close to a chatty group of students without saying a word often has the desired effect. Sometimes it is a good idea to move to the back of the class out of the students’ eye lines when you want them to focus on the work at hand. At other times you may want to half sit on your table at the front of the room to convey a relaxed atmosphere.

Limits and rewards

Giving acknowledgement for students’ achievements and good behaviour is not simply a matter of being “nice”; it is a high level professional skill. All the main theories that we have looked at tell us that while we can limit behaviour by the use of sanctions, we can only build it through acknowledgement and reward. At its simplest this involves quiet acknowledgement. “This is an excellent working atmosphere class, thank you”, or “Haida you have followed all the guidelines I gave in writing that essay. Good work, I look forward to seeing your self-assessment”. Teachers are sometimes anxious about over-praising students. It is true that students can spot phony praise a mile off and we will look closely at how to praise in the next chapter. However, I can say that in over thirty years of classroom support and observation I have never met a teacher who praised children too much!

Assertive teachers know how to provide acknowledgement for appropriate behaviour and set limits to unwanted behaviour. They usually work to a plan that moves from re-directions through warning to sanctions. We will be looking at how to do this in the next chapter. Sometimes when we are new to teaching we are reluctant to sanction poor behaviour because we think it will damage our 6

relationship with children. This is a false belief. Young people need to know where they stand and will sometimes experiment with misbehaviour to find out where the limits are. The danger with putting off sanctions is that we absorb more and more misbehaviour and then “lose it” and start throwing children out of our room. Our job is to teach appropriate behaviour, not to demonstrate what it takes to make us angry.

Straight from the Horse’s Mouth! Comments from 3 ASTs on how they establish

their classes at the beginning of the year.

If you have found any of the forgoing too theoretical, you might enjoy reading these comments from some Advanced Skills Teachers about how they establish themselves with new classes at the beginning of the year. Use them to focus your views about how you want to develop your assertive teaching style.

A. I continually repeat my routines and the school rules. I make myself completely clear: “don’t bother to ask me if you can go to the toilet”.

Don’t ever deviate from the school policy.

When I take on a new class I phone every parent and introduce myself.

Get students familiar with what is in the classroom and what they are and are not allowed to get out themselves.

I create new wall displays as quickly as possible to give students ownership.

Get help from colleagues when required.

Support your colleagues.

Be the most organized you have ever been. They don’t give you any bother once they know you have all the plans, the information on them, the details of every lesson, the targets they need to meet.

B. Complete persistence with the behaviour policy. Follow through on everything.

Know your students. If you have an issue with a student get information from their KS manager.

Be prepared to have a laugh and a joke.

Do not bear grudges. Just saying “all right?” to a student in the corridor can make the difference.

I insist on students listening when I talk. I ask for an apology before carrying on.

I give clear objectives – what I expect them to achieve.

You need the humility to ask for help when you need it.

You need a supportive department.

C. Seating plan. I establish it by getting them to line up outside my room, boy and girls in two separate lines. The first line goes into the room and sits in alternative seats.

Be a stickler for routines –no one in the room when I am not there - bags away, shirts tucked in.

More strict than later on – for example, I go mad if the register is interrupted. Same with talking under.

Follow through what you have said – infringements, detentions etc.

Phone calls home.

Give them choices – describe consequences.

I’m good at behaviour – determined.

You must have a love of the job; show real passion.

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Chapter 2 Key points: 1. Assertiveness means being able to affirm you beliefs and opinions in a confident and assured manner 2. Assertiveness is based on a set of transferrable learned skills 3. You have a right to teach, your students have a right to learn 4. Assertiveness is strongly linked to positivity 5. Passive and aggressive modes are ineffectual 6. Scripts are prepared pieces of conversation 7. Assertive scripts are brief, target focussed, repetitive when necessary and positive 8. Learn and practise a variety of scripts 9. Three part messages involve a positive opening, a positive direction and end with an acknowledgement 10. Avoid pointless and rhetorical questions 11. Use directional questions 12. Use the locus of power concept to plan and evaluate encounters 13. Make sure to modulate your voice- rising and falling as appropriate 14. Quiet ear messages work well for warnings and sanctions 15. If challenged, pause before you reply 16. Clarity, brevity and direction are more important than volume 17. Do not shoosh. Use words or signals instead 18. Confident upright standing pose; be careful of too much gesticulation 19. Plan your teaching positions 20. Use proximity to manage behaviour 21. Verbal praise is a professional skill 22. The effective use of sanctions is an important part of relationship building

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• • •

Some questions for you to consider What verbal techniques or mannerisms have been most useful to you so far in asserting your authority in the classroom?

What are you like when you are passive, what triggers it and what might you do next time?

What are you like when you are aggressive, and what triggers it and what might you do next time?

References: One of the best books I know on assertiveness is called, “A Woman In Your own Right”, by Anne Dickson. I recommend you (and that includes men) read it if you want to deepen your understanding.

Acknowledgement The late Trevor Withers for his work on scripts Trevor Averre Beeson for the three part message

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2. The nature of reward and the danger of perverse reward In behavioural theory a reward is defined as a stimulus that increases behaviour and a punishment as something that decreases behaviour. There are two important consequences to this. The first is that we need to review our reward systems from time to time to see if they are motivating students. If young people are not motivated by our rewards we need to change them, perhaps after consulting the students themselves.

The second is that we sometimes confuse punishments with rewards. For example, if we shout at a child and make them the centre of attention we are quite likely to be reinforcing the behaviour that we are trying to reduce. Most of us can remember from our own schooldays how entertaining it was when a teacher lost their temper in class! That is one of the reasons why it is usually a bad idea to shout at a child when they are misbehaving.

3. The nature of punishment. In behavioural theory an action that reduces a behaviour is a punishment. We often prefer to call it something else such as negative consequence or negative feedback. There is a good reason for this. If punishment is too harsh it is likely to produce resistance or depression. Even laboratory animals become depressed if they are subject to over – punishment. Politicians, police officers and teachers sometime express the desire for stronger punishments. However, harsh punishments do not work. Back in the days when schools used corporal punishment the same children’s names would re-appear in the punishment book, and this is still true in places where corporal punishment is practiced.

Behavioural theory tells us that punishment is most effective when it is light but certain. Put another way, it is not the severity of punishment that matters but its consistency.

4. The importance of reward Most of us would not try to train a horse or a dog without a pocketful of apples. This is because we understand the importance of using incentives to build compliance in a step by step fashion.

Behaviorists tells us that we need frequent reward to build behaviour and then less frequent reward to make it more durable. Reward and acknowledgement is essential for shaping behaviour. In the stressed environment of the classroom teachers are less likely to acknowledge appropriate behaviour. In fact we are much more likely to focus on and punish negative behaviour

5. The importance of consistency If we are teaching through the use of rewards and penalties it is important that we are consistent. Laboratory rats would never learn which bar to press if they received random shocks and rewards! The same is true of our students. This is often an issue for beginner 2

teachers. If we are trying out different techniques as we settle into the job we are likely to be inconsistent. Similarly, if we are busy and stressed we may become inconsistent. Consistency is the key to successful reward and sanction systems.

When we survey teachers about what they need to improve behaviour in their school they often say that they wish their colleagues were more consistent. Things would be much better if everyone else did their job properly! We must be careful not to be too rigid on this point. We are humans and therefore we are inconsistent. Complete consistency is a target that we rarely achieve. However, it is essential to aim for consistency. Use a video or audio recording of your own classroom performance to see if you reward as consistently as you think you are. In the same way, check up on how consistent you are in your use of sanctions. A video or audio recording of our teaching will often show us that we are not as positively rewarding as we imagine.

B. The cognitive behaviourist perspective In the 1950s behavioural theory was modified by theorists who insisted on the importance of cognitive processing. They pointed out that different individuals perceive and process the same events differently. They might attach different meanings to the same stimulus, their information processing rates may differ and so might the amount of information they filter in and out. Instead of a stimulus leading directly to a response S - R We now have a stimulus leading via cognition to a response, S -C-R This means we need to pay attention to the ways in which our instructions are understood by students. We can get a flavour of this by looking at the idea of target language.

Target language. Most teachers know that if they are sitting in a science laboratory and they tell their students not to fiddle with the gas-taps, there will be several students who immediately start to do just that. It is as though their mental processing has given them a picture of ‘gas taps’ and ‘fiddling’ and they have acted immediately on the image. The ‘stop’ command, the, ‘no’, in the sentence has not had much effect. On the other hand, if we tell a class to clasp their hands together and face the front we are much less likely to get any fiddling with the gas taps. In just the same way, if we tell students off for talking too much we are likely to get the talking behaviour we describe. It is far more effective to ask for silence or for low level voices. So we need to focus on target behaviour. Tell students what to do, rather than telling them what they should not do.

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3. Cognitive processing. We need to think about the way students process language and then adapt our instructions accordingly.

Take up Time Give students ‘take-up time’, leaving a pause between giving an instruction and expecting a pupil to carry it out, perhaps by briefly turning away. This take-up time allows the student to make a choice, to bring the instruction into line with their own thinking.

Unambiguous language When we are thinking about the language of communication we need also to remind ourselves of the difficulties faced by young people on the autistic spectrum. Such young people are likely to have difficulty grasping idiom and metaphor, so that a phrase such as, “don’t barge in”, would be meaningless and puzzling. We also need to be alert to the problems that young people may have with decoding the language meanings involved in sarcasm and irony. So avoid sarcasm and irony.

4. Student involvement Another way of ensuring that students understand expectations is to involve them in formulating rules and expectations.

We know one teacher who, at the beginning of the year, draws a white vertical line down the middle of his whiteboard. He then asks his class to tell him how they think he should behave.

The class are immediately able to make a series of suggestions. He should arrive on time, be fair, teach interesting lessons and so on. Once his side of the board is full he then asks his students how they should behave. They immediately start saying they should arrive on time, have their equipment with them, listen when other children are talking; they mirror his behaviour and engage in the issue of rule-making.

Only use a technique like this if you are confident of your ability to manage it. It may be simpler to stick to teaching your own rules and expectations.

5. Establishment periods. As the words suggest, this refers to those periods and situations when people are more receptive to new learning. They occur at the beginning of the term or the beginning of the day and sometimes during lessons. Teach or re-teach your expectations during establishment periods. For example, it is easier to teach rules and routines at the beginning of the term or the beginning of the day when students and teachers are more relaxed and in a receptive mood. It is more difficult to teach or remind students of rules and routines when there is already a conflictual situation in the classroom. Students are unlikely to learn in a combative setting. No student should ever be more than six weeks away from learning or being reminded of the most important rules and routines.

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C. Humanist Approaches Humanist Psychology focuses on the role of emotions and feeling in human experience and deals with issues such as identity, self actualization, and the ways in which individuals experience the world. The aim of humanistic psychology is to give a complete account of human experience integrating behaviour, thought and emotion.

Humanist psychology takes an optimist perspective on the world; it is based on the idea that human beings have an innate desire to learn providing they find themselves in the right setting.

Abraham Maslow for example, demonstrated that individuals develop progressively as their needs are met. He developed this idea in the form of a hierarchy of human needs. (see illustration)

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The implication of this model is not only that human beings strive towards higher goals but that they require to have successive needs met in order to do so. It is easy to see how this applies to learning environments such as classrooms. People tend to focus their attention on the level of need that is not currently being met. For example, if students are concerned about distractions or threats in a classroom, they are unlikely to apply themselves properly to academic work.

1. Meeting unmet needs. In the past twenty years schools have become much better at meeting students’ needs. Breakfast clubs and lunchtime and after school clubs provide a supportive and safe atmosphere. Most schools now ensure that teaching staff have data covering any special needs a student might have and often provide extra support in the classroom. It is essential to read and understand the data you are provided with about your learners and to seek further information when you do not understand the behaviour of an 5

individual child. Equally we need to be sure to report and discuss puzzling or challenging behaviour with colleagues and be alert to the idea that changes in behaviour may be indicative of underlying trouble.

2.Understanding difference. Schools are now much more aware of issues of difference between individuals. As well as being aware of differences in race, class and gender identity. It is now not uncommon for members of staff to be open about issues of gender identity. We have recently attended an assembly where a senior member of staff came out as gay and congratulated the students on making the school feel safe enough for her to do so. 40% of students in our schools leave without proper qualifications at least in part because they do not think the school is for people like them. So as classroom teachers we need to make sure we do our best to connect with every student and join in whole school equality initiatives. At its simplest level this means using questionnaires to build student interest inventories, giving students the opportunity to tell us and the class about their interests and taking every opportunity to meet with parents and carers.

3. Building trust. When we start teaching or when we take on new classes we can feel that students do not like us or are hostile to us. This is often because they do not trust us and are on their guard. Or they may be going through a bad time. Often at beginning of year staff meetings, the head will mention a few past students who have done very well despite the fact that staff found them very difficult at times. The message for us is to see though the hostile and indifferent face to the child behind the mask. We are the adult and our job is to reach out, not to mirror the hostile behaviour. An important skill is learning to separate the behaviour from the child. This is sometimes phrased as “blame the behaviour not the child�. Above all, do not take hostility or indifference personally. It is rarely about you.

Trust builds up through time and you as the adult need to know that. We can accelerate the process by reaching out, whether it is by smiling at students in the corridor or complimenting them on a hairstyle through to joining in extra- curricular activities and school trip. Positivity is a professional skill.

We also have many one-to one encounters with students, and we can either use them to build up trust or to increase animosity. We will deal with this in detail in chapter 5.

4. Seeing the whole child. The best teaching occurs when we know and understand each student in our class, and the best teachers know this. However it is a tall order. In secondary schools we may only see a class once a week, perhaps on a carousel basis, and we can get to Christmas and feel we hardly know some of our students. In primary school we see our class every day but we can still feel that in the hurly burly we scarcely have a chance to get to know each child well.

There is no magic solution here; all we can do is take every opportunity to reach out. What we can do though is avoid the dangers of labeling. This child is the one with ADHD, this child is the one with the difficult background. It is a short step from there to thinking that we cannot do 6

anything without professional advice and to stop seeing the child for the label. When we are building trust or trying to reach challenging children we need to remember that often what works one day may not work the next, and what did not work today may work tomorrow. We need to keep on trying. The hall mark of excellent teachers is persistence.

With our behavioural spectacles on we see the world in terms of incentives and penalties and become aware of the need for consistency. With our cognitive spectacles on we see the world in terms of information and understand the need for careful explanation and listening. With our humanist spectacles on we see the need to reach out to children who want to succeed. Those who are struggling are seldom trying to cause problems; they are usually trying to solve them.

As a professional you will always be faced with judgments about when and whether you can make exceptions to your rules and expectations in order to help a young person to belong and to make progress.

Chapter 1 Key points: 1. Students are strongly influenced by their immediate surroundings.

2. Review you reward systems from time to time to see if they are motivating students.

3. Make sure your own behaviour is not rewarding student misbehaviour.(for example by shouting or using punishments that provide entertainment) 4. Harsh punishment is likely to produce resistance 5. It is not the severity of punishment that matters but its consistency.

6. Reward and acknowledgement are essential for shaping behaviour 7. Use a video or audio recording of your own classroom performance to see if you are consistently acknowledging appropriate behaviour 8. Use a video or audio recording of your own classroom performance to ensure you are consistent with your use of warnings and sanctions.

9. Focus on target behaviour. Tell students what to do, rather than telling them what they should not do.

10. Give students take up time to understand and follow your instructions 11. Avoid sarcasm and irony 12. Where appropriate involve students in formulating rules and expectations.

13. Read the data you are provided with on students needs and abilities 14. Make an inventory of students interests 7

15. Take every opportunity to meet with parents and carers 16. Remember to blame the behaviour not the child 17. Do not take hostility or indifference personally.

18. The hall mark of excellent teachers is persistence.

19. Young people are seldom trying to cause problems; they are usually trying to solve them

Question one What are your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to rewards in the classroom? Remember rewards can be both intangible (adult praise) and tangible (stars and stickers).

Question two How do you explain your expectations about behaviour to your students?

Question three How well do you know your learners and how could you improve that knowledge? Colleagues and the school data provide you with a wealth of information on their needs and abilities

Bibliography (I think we will just put the same brief bibliography at the end of each chapter)

Canter Whedall and Merit Rogers

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