how to be very strict

[hercules]

I always considered myself to be a strict but fair teacher but I'm clearly not strict enough for the kids I'm now teaching. I've been struggling with a few kids in a class I teach and the lsa said I need to be more strict. I know she's right but not sure how to be more strict without being a bitch.
I do all the recommended stuff but it's not enough. What else can I do?

lol at head. He never leaves his office, never mind actually talk to the kids

but a table and chair outside his room... let him see how these kids are behaving

That would be impossible I'm afraid. A complete no no.

Silly things like wearing "management" clothes - business-like suit, hair, shoes and make-up - add to the general aura of being in authority, and somehow filter through to the children. Also stress-relief techniques can help for you. I'm not suggesting that you are stressed up but having a few techniques to "remove" yourself emotionally can help you enormously when one or two children are messing up - it helps me to focus on the children who are getting on sensibly, rather than be p**d off generally.

I teach a really grotty bottom maths set every day at eleven, which used to sit like a huge lump in the middle of the day, overshadowing everything else. All of the children have special needs and I have 4 with behaviour statements. Now, at the end of a lesson, instead of dismissing them at once, I quietly put a smiley face on the board and silently write names under it, for children who have worked hard/quietly/answered lots of questions. Children can go as I write their name on the board, but I don't start unless I have absolute silence and I won't put anyone on the board if they are talking.

Children who aren't on the list remain in class and have to work in silence for twenty minutes before they are allowed to go to lunch. I use that time for planning and marking.

The children who have worked hard love being able to leave a couple of minutes early because they get first choice at lunch/the best tables and those who stay behind hate it because they get the dregs/can't have lunch with their friends. If your HT won't allow you to let children out a couple of minutes early, then just move the clock in your room forward by a couple of minutes so that the children think they're having a treat!

I do it every time without fail and the children are now working OK and the lesson is, from time to time, actually enjoyable! Even the recalcitrant one or two are now usually getting through the lesson without any major hiccups. Often no-one needs to stay behind.

I also do the raffle thing with my own class - I have spies who report back to me on the class' behaviour with other teachers/TAs/dinner ladies and anyone who hasn't had a verbal warning gets a raffle ticket for a weekly draw. If no-one from my class has had to be kept in or had detention then we draw out three prizes. Otherwise we draw out one.

Incidentally, what do other teachers say about this child?

I would say that if your one child contintues to disrupt the lesson and prevent other children from learning, then you need to go down the exclusion route. Your behaviour policy must include a process for escalating problems to SMT/HT level, and for exclusion. This policy must have been ratified by governors. If the policy isn't being put into practice by SMT then they are not following the governors' instructions, so you should go to your teacher governor and have it raised at a main governors' meeting. If it is nothing to do with your own practice (and I'm not suggesting for one moment that it might be), then other teachers will be having the same problems and something needs to be done to solve them.

Reading all these messages makes me want to change schools even more. Most of the things suggested arent do able in my school. Our SMT are hidden away and staff morale is low as we dont feel SMT has a clue about what goes in in the classroom.

I think you should change schools too, hercules. Sounds really rubbish to have all your good work and intentions undermined by the lack of support from management. I think it's really important to work in GOOD places in the earlier years of a career. Then you can take all your learning about what works to wherever you like because you're a bit more resiliant and expect to succeed. Hope this kid takes a turn for the better. Would it help to sic the LSA onto him in some capacity? Would s/he play ball on that or isn't it her/his role?

no, she's attached tpo another statemented pupil.

I had two yr 10 groups that sound like yours hercules and I used to feel sick with anger after a lesson with them. There was a girl gang of six bright disaffected girls in one class and two disaffected, bright boys in the other. It didn't help that I was the nineth teacher of German that these classes had had in 12 months. (I will always ask that at interview now!) Three things helped, but it took two terms and by then I was definitely not staying... I felt I was turning into the kind of teacher I had always promised myself I wouldn't and the thought of taking these yr10s in yr11...well I couldn't. Sad thing was the majority of the classes were completely inoffensive - lazy, but not nasty, with a few really nice, hard-working kids as a bonus, and I felt guilty about dishing up death-by-worksheet instead of doing speaking and listening activities. Listen to me! Three years on and they still have the power to push my buttons!
1)Drop your voice - male teachers shout less because their voices cut through the noise better - and become a broken record.
2)I rearranged the room so that the children were siting in groups of six, instead of rows. It felt counter-intuitive, but I was then able to dismiss in 'good' table order, award prizes to 'good' tables, dismiss the 'bad' tables pupil by pupil etc. I found that it broke my girl gang down into more manageable units, and I was able to praise them with the rest of their table and not just be saying sit down, be quiet, where're your books...
3) I resigned - and immediately felt in control and able to smile at these classes because I would only have to smile at them 15 more times sort of thing.

[hugs] It is so miserable having an unsupportive SMT, it just escalates everything.

Sob. Often the way as I recall. All I have to offer is my sympathy, then.

Thanks. Again not allowed to change desks, not my room anyway so wouldnt have time.
I wear a suit, makeup, always very professional. I'll try the lower voice.
It brings it home when I realise i cant even do most suggested things in my school. I have little experience of other school so forget it can be different elsewhere.

Oh herc- please move schools. This just sounds dead depressing. How easy will it be for you to move onwards and upwards?

Probably very easy. There is a brilliant job i'm applying for. I really hope to get it. Wont know for some time yet though.

Ooo. Will keep everything crossed for you.

Ooo. Will keep everything crossed for you.

YEs, everything crossed for you. And remember, you're over halfway through the year now...

My HoD suggested the lower voice. He pointed out that Iobviously thought I sounded confident and in control, but that I sounded a bit screechy and panicky.

thanks

I don't claim to have the answers, but can I describe the solutions I've come up for with 4 particularly tricky characters over the years (with these 4 I made it, there are countless others I never cracked!):

1. I kept a minute by minute record of Josh's behaviour during a couple of sample lessons. I had two columns. In the wider column I recorded positive behaviours, in the narrower one I recorded negative. Both times very neutrally, no judgment comments. I then sat down with the boy and he was shocked - he hadn't realised what his behaviour was like.

2. I gave Alex a detention in which I chatted with him and found out that he really didn't get what I was explaining and didn't know how to start the work, but there was no way he was going to ask (very "street" kid). So I explained that there were 60 minutes & 30 students, which meant 2 minutes per student - when did he want his 2 minutes? He said immediately after I'd finished speaking so he could start the work. We did that from Y8 until he left in Y11!

3. Chris was in a C/D Y11 class that I took over so I couldn't waste any time with his deliberate attention seking. So I put my classroom into desks of 6, explained to the class how the groupings worked ("you all work well with other people", "you all ask for my help regularly and I'm happy to give it.") There was one table for "couldn't be bothered" and I said to the rest of the group "if you want to pass, you've got to do the same as I do and ignore the attention seeking behaviours of certain people." Of the 6 on that table only Chris remained after a week or two (had to rearrange the desks again!) and he just sat and shouted out obnoxious comments but everyone looked away, and eventually he just sat and graffitted his book in silence until he was permanently excluded!

4. Lauren constantly wandered the corridor instead of coming in, refused to work, got out a book, chatted, cried etc. Luckily I know her background. So I kept her back and she said she often didn't understand. Again she is one who cannot fail in public, so I said that if she tried the work, even if she didn't get it, then every Wednesday after the lesson she & her best friend could stay in all break & I would explain to her the difficult concepts. She did, she understood, she always comes straight into lesson now and works. Most weeks in the end we just chatted (well, tortuous listening to teenage angst poetry, actually).

Believe me, these were all horrible horrible kids, but somehow with these 4 I managed (by trial and error) to find the chink in their armour and make them into semi-decent students! Good luck, I know how disheartening it can all be.

Thanks fisil, I really like the column idea. Better than targets. Much more detailed with lots of opportunity for good moments.

lol@ listening to teenage angst poetry, fisil.

whichwich, ds1 has just started doing this

Hercules, good luck with the job applications.

Very interesting thread - you teachers have my admiration. My son's form teacher has just started the raffle ticket scheme - wonder if she reads mumsnet!