To reflect on classroom management and discipline

Aim

To reflect on classroom management and discipline using the Elton Report's `principles or classroom management'.

Do I:

1. Know my students as individuals - names, personalities, interests, friends?

2. Plan and organise both the classroom and the lesson to keep students interested and minimise the opportunities for disruption - furniture layout, pupil grouping, matching of work, pacing lessons, enthusiasm, humour?

3. Involve students in establishing the rules for classroom behaviour and routinely reinforce why they are necessary?

4. Act flexibly to take advantage of unexpected events rather than being thrown by them?

5. Continually observe or 'scan' the behaviour of the class?

6. Remain aware of, and control, my own behaviour, including stance and tone of voice?

More in this chapter

• To understand student 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 consider strategies appropriate to managing different behavioural challenges
• 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