Elizabeth Holmes - Managing pupil behaviour

Managing pupil behaviour

It has long been an area of concern for new teachers, but behaviour management seems increasingly to be a focus of more experienced teachers' professional lives too. Picture the scene. you've spent hours devising engaging activities for your pupils, but the behaviour of one or two key individuals is transforming the attitude of the whole class, dragging you all into a downward spiral of reprimands and sanctions. It's soul destroying.

Although there is extensive advice on behaviour management to be found in the education bays of almost every bookshop, revisiting just a handful of key ideas on a regular basis can help to transform your experience of poor behaviour in your classroom.

If anger is at the root of much of the dysfunctional behaviour in schools, then anger management skills are worth keeping in mind when tackling these pupils. Knowing the main functions of anger will equip you even more.

In their book, 'Anger Management: A practical guide', Faupel, Herrick and Sharp suggest that anger is the 'fight' response to a perceived threat, and that it is used as a response to frustration, as a way of getting what we want and as a release of pent up emotion. Any teacher will recognise this in some pupils! Although we cannot control all the frustrations and pent up emotions of pupils, we can equip them with the skills to express anger effectively. These ideas may help to avoid the 'hit and hurt' culture:

Don't greet a pupil's anger with your own. A child that has lost or is losing control needs you to be calm and rational.

Never go from cold to hot. Pupils need to be able to track your displeasure at their behaviour. Be specific, not general, in reprimands.

Offer pupils a chance to talk to you about how they are feeling. Give them the opportunity to engage their emotions through the work they do in your lessons.

Encourage pupils to recognise their own positive behaviour.

Use genuine praise that is specific and targeted as much as possible.

Think about how pupils gain your attention in lessons. Be sure that they know how pro-social behaviour will be noticed.

Much of the time-wasting agro in lessons stems from pupils' interactions with each other. Many teachers find it useful to devise agreements with their pupils about the way in which they should communicate. The start of an academic year is a particularly good time to discuss this with pupils, paying attention to the way in which the agreements are phrased. 'Listen' carries a more positive message than 'don't talk'. You might like to agree 'rules' relating to the way that pupils:

speak to each other and to you;

sit;

listen;

move around the room.

Having agreed with your pupils the expectations that you have, don't relax them. Consistency will breed stability and security. When building your relationships with individuals (and remember, this can be done as effectively outside your classroom as it can be inside) mutual respect is a key to success. Teachers are guardians of pupils' right to learn, but the deal can cut both ways, with pupils being guardians of your right to teach.

In no time, teachers are able to establish who in their classes is most likely to disrupt. This predictability can be tedious, but it does offer teachers the scope to anticipate bad behaviour, distract the miscreant and praise at the earliest opportunity. All these approaches are preventative tools that can help to pre-empt the persistent low-level poor behaviour that is a source of such stress for many in the profession.

While your pupils are in your classroom you have to work as a team if you are to teach and they are to learn. Motivating pupils to appreciate this fully can help to prevent indiscipline. These ideas may work for you:

when appropriate, offer pupils some choice over what they do in your lessons;

think of ways of teaching through the interests of your pupils. This necessarily involves getting to know what's motivating and inspiring them at any time - knowledge that can be extremely useful anyway!

Sometimes though, despite employing all the usual behaviour and anger management skills, situations can deteriorate and require firm intervention. It is worth remembering that misbehaviour is rarely intended to be a personal insult. It is almost always connected to other factors impacting the pupil's life and it can useful to tell them that you appreciate that. These ideas could help:

don't get into a debate about a child's behaviour during the lesson. Instead, arrange a time when you can talk about what happened and how it can be avoided in the future. Public discussions may be interpreted as public humiliation.

Use the opportunity to teach key ideas about emotional awareness, respect for others and citizenship.

Be utterly consistent in threats and delivery of punishment.

Agree a plan for positive change in the future. The next time you teach the pupil take a minute to recap on the agreement and reiterate your desire to help him/her to succeed.

Above all, simply being mindful of building respectful relationships with pupils can help to reduce the incidence of misbehaviour in many cases.

Originally published on Teachernet