Being a teacher is a challenging and highly rewarding career option. One of the most challenging aspects of the job is classroom and behaviour management.
You can have all the degrees and the knowledge in the world, but if the classroom is not managed successfully all the knowledge and degrees count for nothing.
The exact system that you use is very personal and dependent on your individual beliefs and style, but there are underlying principles that apply to all successful strategies. Unfortunately there is not “one size fits all” when it comes to behaviour management.
Firstly, you are responsible for your classroom and the way that the classroom operates. This responsibility covers occupational safety and welfare of all members of the classroom as well as the learning that takes place.
The first thing that needs to be done is to set up a basic list of totally non-negotiable behavioural expectations. I do this at the very start of the school year and have the students involved in a series of discussions about what they think makes a happy, safe and productive place to work. Once we have brainstormed I reduce the student feedback to no more than five expectations. I share these expectations with the class before the final step in the process is made. The expectations are written in positive language and are keep simple and specific.
Instead of listing a rule as “don’t talk” it’s better to say “if it’s ok to talk please do so in quiet and polite English.”
By having the discussions, the students’ feel involved and by having no more than five expectations, they are easy to remember and therefore apply.
Once this has been done, print out the expectations and display them in your classrooms. In this way you can refer to them in general and specifically is a student is not following an expectation.
Develop an attention seeking system that best suits you. It can be a countdown (3,2,1,0 stop), clapping system (3 claps means stop) for example. Whatever you use, the students must be totally familiar with what it is.
An action and consequence system must also be set up and activated. I use a warning system if a student is not following an expectation. For me step 3 is the maximum and will result in “time out” within the classroom followed by a discussion with the student preferably in private. For more disrespectful behaviours, a “think sheet” and/or Behaviour Contact can be used meaning that the parents may be involved.
It is great to have a classroom that is quiet, productive and more over a fun place to be, where the rapport between you and the students is positive, but without a working behaviour management system in place, this will not happen.
The bottom line is that you are the “boss” and therefore responsible for the environment that both you and the students have to work in everyday. By using these simple guidelines and by being 100% consistent such an environment can be created. Always be firm, but friendly, treat every student exactly the same when applying the expectations, give lots of positive verbal feedback for positive behaviours and remember that if a consequence is being given for an inappropriate behaviour it is the behavioural choices that you disapprove of not the individual student.
Taking two or three lessons at the start of the school year to develop your strategies is a small amount of time in reality and can pave your way to a successful, productive and rewarding academic year. It really is worth taking the time.