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

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Bill Rogers is a well-known theorist for his classroom management/behaviour approach. This approach covers advice on everything from preventative behaviour management techniques, to consequences and one-on-one programs. From experienced school leadership to first-year-out and early career teachers, the day held invaluable insights, instruction and examples. As a part of the Responsibility Theory, Purje includes the rules that he uses when teaching as well as the classroom behaviour procedures that accompany these rules. Ragnar Purje's classroom rules are: When asking questions in discipline (and management) contexts it helps to use direct interrogative forms “What…?”, “When…?”, “How…?”, “Where…?” rather than “Why…?” or “Are you…?” This enables the student to focus on what they need to think about or do relative to the context of the question. The two most common questions asked in this regard - both in and out of class - are “What are you doing…?” or “What is our rule for…?”, followed by “What should you be doing?’ If a student whinges or argues we find it helpful to refocus to the main issue at that point, sometimes adding ‘partialagreement’, as in the playground incident. 5. Clarifying consequences Above all, such a plan is means to an end of building a positive working relationship with students, so that they feel safe and able to make the best use of their time while they are with us. No problems

Written jargon-free in Bill's accessible and empathetic voice it includes in-depth strategies, practical examples, case studies and pragmatic hints and tips to put in to practice. This will make for informative and inspiring reading to all thoseinvolved in educating our children and young people. Challenging behaviour refers to the behaviours that are considered as unacceptable in the environment they occur in. Within an educational environment, challenging behaviour is commonly considered to be the actions of an individual or group that endanger or harm the students or others and interfere with the students' academic success (Hyde, Carpenter & Conway, 2010). I mean, right from day one the more distracting and disruptive students who tend to be attentionally insecure do need a fair bit of guidance from their teachers about their behaviour, both in the public sphere of the classroom itself and also following up with students one-to-one who’ve been particularly difficult in those first few lessons. And again, there’s plenty of very clear research that effective and positive teachers follow up with students one-to-one away from their audience, where they’re able to have those behaviour conversations respectfully about the way in which that student has affected the rights of others in the room. And it might even be on the first few days that the teacher will be following up with one or two students who are the more attentionally insecure students. That balance between the public behaviour leadership and the private behaviour conversations are crucial in those first few weeks. Even that is part of building relationships with those more challenging students.Contrast the above with the following: Several students are calling out in whole-class teaching time (it is a Y6 class). The teacher briefly, tactically pauses as she scans the faces of her class. “A number of students are calling out.” Sometimes the directional cue is enough to raise behaviour awareness. We may need to add the directional cue or rule reminder, e.g. “Hands up, thanks.” or “Remember our class rule for discussion, thanks.” We find that ‘thanks’, said confidently and respectfully, is more effective than ‘please’. After all, it’s not a request. You have directed a student to work silently. Soon after, they begin to chat. You then force this student by giving them a choice – you can choose to work silently, or I will have to move you. If a student hasn’t got a pen in the first few lessons, I provide him with what he needs. If after several lessons it’s clear this is more than forgetfulness, we will need to work with the student on a one-to-one plan to enable his responsibility (see Rogers, 2011). In the classroom itself we never argue about why a student hasn’t got the necessary equipment.

There is a time and place for everything, and Bill Rogers recommends that you use conditional permissionto reinforce this. When we give a direction to a student it is important to focus our language on the expected behaviour. For example, consider a scenario in which several students are calling out in whole-class teaching time and the teacher says, “Don’t call out please!” This only tells the class/individual what we don’t want them to do. Some teachers will also use the pointless interrogative, such as “Why are you calling out?” Or, equally unhelpful, “Are you calling out, Travis?!”BR: It is important to make it explicit, even with secondary students to explicitly explore with them in that critical first meeting what the right to feel safe involves. In a sense, the right to feel safe and the right to learn and the right to fundamental respect and fair treatment, those rights are not negotiable. You don’t begin the year by saying to older children or even upper primary children ‘what rights do you think you have?’. You begin by coming from those rights and discussing within those rights what a safe environment looks, sounds and feels like; what a respectful environment looks, sounds and feels like; and what it feels and sounds like to have a learning environment where we support one another – and that includes everything from noise level to reasonable sharing during class discussion and even allowing healthy disagreement. But also pointing out that in class discussions that disagreement has to be conducted respectfully so that if you disagree with one another about something we’re sharing you give reasons for that, you don’t simply mouth off at another student because you disagree with them. There are at least three essential aspects of that establishment phase we have to get as right as we can. The first one is those core routines. They cover everything from the way we enter the class; coming from a restless, busy playground environment where there’s a lot of noise and movement into a quieter, calmer setting. Even that movement, that transition between if you like ‘social’ time and ‘class’ time is crucial. Teachers who establish positive routines in these areas will find a kind of a smooth running developing in those critical first weeks. And that includes issues like how we establish whole class focus and attention, seating arrangements, noise level in the room – the volume of noise with 25 students plus their teacher in a small space – right through to keeping the place reasonably tidy and organised and monitor systems, right through to lesson closure and the way we leave the room.

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. There are roughly nine popular models for behaviour management which have been around for a number of years and the theorists behind the popular behaviour management models include: In all honesty, the most common problem ‘weak teachers’ have, in my experience, is that they are not assertive enough; it is their Achilles heel. The tough part is that this comes with experience for many. I have learned to be assertive without being autocratic…and actually that is easier than learning to be assertive if you’re not. But you have no choice – it is a key teacher skill that needs to be worked on. After watching Bill Rogers, I found myself saying ‘thanks’ all the time.. and it makes a difference. Are you talking ...?” (to students clearly talking, while the teacher is conducting whole-class teaching).Podcasts where Bill explains his ideas and ethos in more detail as well as answering teachers' FAQs The particular reference cited in this article (Rogers, 2011) is the major third edition of his book, Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide to Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management and Colleague Support (Sage Publications, London). This book has been translated into several European languages. The theories and models for behaviour management that have been popular throughout the years and are effective in many different scenarios are: