It’s 9am. The dawn of a new day. Your lesson has just begun and you’re quietly optimistic that this will go just as you planned. Then a student in the fourth row starts rocking on their chair.
Within a few minutes, the whole thing has escalated. Forget the lesson: you’re now playing a game of behaviour-management chess with a defiant opponent. It’s the latest in a long line of incidents with this young person.
You have to get them over the line academically, but it feels impossible given their current attitude. What’s a teacher to do?
This is a scenario that I’ve quite often been faced with, working in some incredibly challenging schools across the country, both as a teacher and as a deputy head supporting other colleagues.
The approach we should take is simple: look at behaviour through the lens of psychology. What it means to be human is a complex and fascinating thing. We not only have multifaceted, distinguishable personas, but we’re also bound together as a species.
I encourage teachers and leaders to see their most difficult students as humans before anything else. If they can appreciate what makes the trickiest characters among them tick, they will also be able to uncover what stands between them and great learning.
Cognitive psychology is revolutionising the way we teach, and I am confident that human psychology has the potential to revolutionise the way we manage behaviour. Here are my top three approaches for managing tricky behaviour at a whole-school level, based on research and some tried-and tested methods:
1. ‘Let me show you how it’s done’
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 01, 2019-Ausgabe von TES.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 01, 2019-Ausgabe von TES.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Try not to get hung up on linguistic convention, chic@s
Languages are like water – they take the easiest route. And, like gender, they are fluid. That is why, as world languages evolve to reflect cultural change, a revolution is under way in the use of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ terms, writes Heather Martin
Three simple psychology tips for better behaviour
When a pupil is acting up, their motivations are often hidden from view. It’s possible that teachers themselves are partially at fault for setting the wrong tone in their interaction with others, writes Lekha Sharma, who suggests ways to remodel a school culture
This research could be music to your ears…
Schools should resist putting additional time and resources into yet more English and maths lessons and instead give children’s learning a research-evidenced boost by encouraging them to join a band or an orchestra, says Martin Leigh
Minority (school) report
Predictive technology – powered by increasingly complex algorithms – is finding its way into schools, promising to pre-empt misbehaviour, violence or mental health issues before they happen. But does it work, and is its use ethical, asks Simon Creasey
Giving school a spin again
In a bid to improve parental engagement, one Edinburgh school is putting parents in their children’s shoes to experience a typical modern school day – and the results are breathtaking, finds Emma Seith
Averting Pupils' Social Stigma By ‘Poverty Proofing'
Do your school policies unintentionally ‘out’ children from disadvantaged backgrounds? One charity says such occurrences are all too common and have proposed ‘poverty proofing’ as the solution. Lucy Edkins investigates
A Plant-Based Diet Of Learning
Aware of the mental health benefits of green-fingered working, Nigel Cox helped to set up an outreach course at his college to support people recovering from substance abuse and other personal challenges
Social And Emotional Skills In The Early Years
Children who are able to focus their attention, manage their behaviour and interact positively with others from a young age experience better learning outcomes later in life, finds Irena Barker
How Centralised Detentions Get Pupils' Attention
By adopting a consistent whole-school approach to rewards and sanctions, we achieved a marked improvement in attitudes to learning – and reduced teachers’ workload, says Calvin Robinson
Homework Truths
With some studies claiming that homework has little or no impact on pupil achievement, schools have been tempted to cut back on it or ban it altogether. But we shouldn’t write homework off, warn two gurus of UK education research. Steve Higgins and Lee Elliot Major argue that the evidence on homework has been misrepresented – and out-of-school study can, in fact, have a major impact on learning outcomes
