Behaviour Management Strategies

A diversion from my usual email this week. The last few months have been a whirlwind with the release of the Classroom Management Handbook, that I co-authored with Ollie Lovell.

We’ve been amazed by the interest in our book. In its first three months of release, it averaged one purchase of the book every 48 minutes.

As a result, I’ve been working with schools in multiple countries (South Africa, the UK, Bahrain, the USA and more) on improving behaviour.  A common theme is that the most effective schools have a strong system to support behaviour management.

So, here’s a summary of key points that school leaders should consider to improve behaviour.

Schools need to provide the conditions that allow a teacher to be successful. This includes having school values and clear standards linked to them. The school leadership must clarify their preferred behaviour management strategies (tools and routines) and also provide support for teachers to track and escalate inappropriate student behaviour.

School values
School values provide teachers with a reference when they are speaking with students. They are the ‘givens’ that come with being part of the community. When a school has consistent values, teachers can use these in their conversations with students to both reinforce school values and draw on shared messaging. The more teachers use the values, the easier it is for students to remember and understand them

For example: ‘Gordon, we don’t talk to each other like that. That behaviour doesn’t align with our school value of respect.’

Preferred behaviour management practices
A school needs to clearly describe their preferred management practices and give teachers time to learn and practise them. Consistency in management practices decreases variability between teachers and makes it easier for teachers and students.

Example tools and routines are: starting routines, describe and direct, proximity, directed choice, partial agreement.

Clarify roles
The roles of teachers and school leaders need to be clarified. This includes defining the expectations of a teacher and the preferred practices (key tools and routines, WIN conversations) and their role in recording behaviour. Middle leaders need to be clear on when and how to follow up behaviour when it needs to be escalated and tracking this over time. Finally, schools need to provide opportunities to learn and practise management skills with effective, ongoing professional learning.

Next week I’ll write further on how we can assess and measure behaviour.

Classroom management
I recently had a great conversation with Teacher Talk host: Jamie Clark on mastering classroom management. You can listen to the podcast.

Happy coaching,
Mark