To consider strategies appropriate to managing different behavioural challenges

Aim

To consider strategies appropriate to managing different behavioural challenges

Evidence and reflection

If possible do this activity with a colleague or in a group. Thinking about the examples listed below, which strategies would be appropriate to dealing with the different situations: 

• non work-related chat
• wandering round the room
• making cheeky comments to the teacher
• throwing pencil/rubber across the room
• interrupting other pupils’ work
• making a racist remark
• damaging books/fittings/equipment
• provocative chair rocking
• talking when silence has been requested
• arriving late
• making a sexist remark
• muttering under breath after a reprimand
• asking a personal question of the teacher
• swearing at another pupil
• swearing at the teacher
• provoking others to laugh by clowning
• pushing past the teacher
• twanging a ruler
• hitting/attacking another pupil
• shouting and running out of the room
• damaging another pupil’s property
• talking to another pupil when teacher is waiting for silence
• tearing up work
• looking at non-school material - comics, photos, cards etc
• threatening the teacher
• making faces behind the teacher’s back
• using obscene gestures
• hitting the teacher

Or, consider the situations below. How would you respond?

• A pupil destroys or defaces the work and says, ‘This is boring. I don’t want to do this.’
• A pupil points at another and says ‘It’s no use asking him; he’s a spastic.’
• You have asked a pupil to move to another seat. She sits tight, folds her arms, looks at her friends and says, ‘I’m not moving. You can’t make me.’
• After a reprimand a pupil bursts out, ’It’s not fair you’re always picking on me. I wasn’t the only one. Why is it always me that gets it?’
• You have explained a task to the class and reinforced this individually with a pupil. In spite of being asked to get on now with the set task this pupil continues to pester you and other pupils with questions about what to do and how it should be done. 

Follow up

Discuss your ideas for managing these situations with colleagues and your mentor. Which presented you with the greatest challenge? Can you say why this is?

More in this chapter

• To understand pupil behaviour in our classroom circumstances
• To explore and understand a school's policies and practices with regard to behaviour management
• To review the repertoire of strategies for managing behaviour which we typically use
• To investigate one's classroom management skills
• To pre-empt general misbehaviour and to reduce incidents of inappropriate behaviour
• To evaluate the beginning of a session and to consider areas for improvement
• To monitor periods of transition in your own teaching
• To review the end of a session and identify areas for improvement
• To monitor responses to a classroom crisis
• To consider your view of disruptive behaviour
• To record incidents of ongoing 'problem' behaviour
• To analyse and reflect on your management of specific behaviour
• To consider the range of sanctions operating in your school
• To reflect on classroom management and discipline