Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide To Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management And Colleague Support

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Bill Rogers understands the demanding nature of the job, and offers wise words and inspirational encouragement to all those involved in educating our children and young people. Master essential instructional routines such as providing clear learning goals and defining levels of proficiency.

This exciting new edition of the best-selling and beloved teacher′s companion looks at the everyday behaviour issues facing teachers working in today′s classrooms. Describing real situations and dilemmas, Bill Rogers provides theoretically sound strategies and best practices to support you in meeting the challenges of the job, as well as building up a rapport with both students and colleagues to enable positive and productive learning environments. This avoids the horrific teacher domineering – “come here Boy!” nonsense. Simply, “Michael…(pause to gain attention)… come up here a sec please.” Then deliberately look away… talk to someone else. Michael will come. He just will. In his own time. It works – try it. It also works in the corridor. “John, come over here for sec please… then walk away to a private area, away from peers. John will follow – and not lose face.” You can then have a quiet word about the behaviour without the show-down. Students are in the bubble of their own a lot of the time. Just because you start talking, doesn’t mean they hear you. Make a deliberate pause between gaining a student’s attention and a direction to ensure they have had sufficient ‘take up’ time. Eg. “Michael pause…David…pause…could you face this way and listen, thanks”.He has written a number of books on behaviour management, discipline, colleague support, and teacher stress. JE: Bill Rogers, welcome to Teacher magazine. In your book [ You Know the Fair Rule], you talk quite a bit about building a positive classroom environment and, within that, you say the first phase is actually establishing a new class. So, what are the things teachers should be doing in those early days and weeks in terms of setting the tone? He whinges that he wasn’t playing with it. She tactically ignores his frown and sulky whingeing tone and keeps the focus – briefly – on the primary issue at this point. She repeats the directed choice and walks away to give him ‘take-up time’. She notices, a little later, that he has sulkily put the toy away and resumed his classwork. She goes over to quietly encourage him in his progress. use of cues for whole-class discussion and questions and use of teacher cue(s) to initiate whole-class attentionat any stage. Students choose how they behave. The forced-choice technique is a way of highlighting this while clarifying what the choices are. You often use it after, or in combination with other strategies.

And lastly, of course, our leadership is coming across by default or by design and we try to establish that leadership consciously and with an awareness that we’re beginning a journey with our students. So, the quality of our leadership is essential to think about in that establishment phase as well. JE: This is all about laying groundwork for the future isn’t it? We’ve talked about the establishment phase. How long is that phase? Does it need to be a term, a half-term, some things need to be done within a few days?

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The focus is on the primary behaviour, giving students take up time and a choice about consequences. Expecting compliance is key but we should not regard ‘giving in’ as a sign of weakness. Communicating to students that you may be wrong is an important part of building relationships whilst maintaining your authority. My pet hate is a teacher who wants his pound of flesh; is uncompromising and moans about kids ‘getting away with it’. It never ever helps. (This is where I find the concept of Emotional Intelligence helpful…some teachers simply cannot bear it when asked to give ground; it is a problem they need help to recognise.) It really is important not to hold things in and think that you’re the only one that’s struggling – because there are natural struggles in our profession, particularly if we’re in more challenging schools. So, it’s crucial in those first few weeks, if things are not working out as well as you’d hoped and you know that there are issues with individual students or even the whole class that are not working well, it’s absolutely crucial to ask your colleagues for support – both that moral support but also that practical support and guidance. Sometimes that might even mean teachers working together sometimes with more difficult classes.