I am a primary school teacher and have taught in some particularly challenging schools. I know that there are lots of different ideas and tools to assist in behaviour management however I wanted to share some of my own tried and tested methods.
Setting the boundaries
I know it sounds obvious, but it is essential to set the boundaries for the children from day 1. They will push the boundaries as far as you will let them and it is important that you are always consistent. You need to be clear in your head what your own expectations are for their behaviour, for example: the noise level in the classroom, for the children's work, for how the children move around the classroom, how they speak to you and each other. These boundaries must be consistently reinforced; when you first have your class this will need to be more frequent than maybe 3 months into the school year.
Don't raise your voice
There are lots of reasons why you should not use raising your voice as a method of control:
- Raising your voice will only result in the children increasing the volume of theirs.
- There is a risk that as your voice gets louder it also gets higher and this can give the appearance that you are losing control.
- Continually raising your voice can put unnecessary stress on it and cause sore throats and strain your vocal cords.
- If you frequently raise your voice then it will have no effect on the children. The less you do it then the more impact it will have.
Instead of using your voice to get the attention of your class, clap a rhythm that they must clap back; repeat this with a different rhythm until all children in the class are clapping back and have their full attention on you. Another method is to stand at the front of the class and act out a silent gesture for the children to copy: you could raise you hand, place your hands on your head then your shoulders then fold your arms. When you are first introducing this method the children may take longer to follow you, however do not begin talking until every child has his full attention on you and is showing that by looking at you.
Rewards
Many schools have reward systems set up for everyone to follow, but in addition to this I like to have reward systems within my classroom. Essentially, all children like praise and reward and I think rewarding good behaviour has more of a positive effect that punishing bad.
- I name the different tables in my classroom and give the children the chance to earn table points for their tables during the week. At the end of the week I announce the "table of the week" and those students get a small prize.
- At the end of the week I reward one child with a prize for being "star of the week." This can be because this particularly child has improved in something or has worked hard all week. The criteria for this can be up to you depending on your class.
- I give the class the chance to earn golden time during the week. This is rewarded to them when as a class they have worked particularly hard on something or shown improvement in something, for example sitting in assembly or lining up sensibly on the playground at the end of playtime. I award this to the children by putting a cube in the "golden time bag" – each cube represents a minute of golden time.
- With particularly challenging children, I set up individual reward systems which are discussed with them and their parents. I select three specific things which they need to work on (they do need to be achievable for the child) and identify a reward which the child would like to earn. If he achieves these targets, this could be some time on the computer or a game with a friend.
Be positive
I know it is obvious, but being positive towards the children is essential; it emphasises your own expectations of acceptable behaviour, builds the children's self-esteem which leads to their more positive behaviour and models to them how you would like them to behave and speak to each other. Being positive also makes you feel better. It avoids any feelings of anxiety in the classroom which can result in you feeling out of control. Children can pick up on negative feelings in the classroom and this only feeds into any bad behaviours, which then only starts a negative spiral for you and them.
I know teaching is hard and I by no means claim to be an expert. However, I think it's always good to hear any new ideas which you may not have tried before. I always like to hear other methods that teachers use in their classrooms.
Alice Capon - Alice is a Primary School teacher in London. She has a BA hons degree in English and American Literature from the University of Kent in ...
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