Teachers - can you help me with new "stopping signals" for Yr6?

[Caz10]

I have a class full of attitude and defiance atm...bleurgh...anyway I normally silence them by doing the old 3....2....1...and ready to listen type thing but I think it is wearing thin now and they are starting not to respond. In infants I had various rainsticks, jingle bells etc but this lot are lible just to tell me to stick my jingle bells up my arse...what is effective for older children? Any suggestions? Purleeeease???!

I use a music timer on the smartboard. While it is on, they have to get themselves ready to listen. When it has stopped, they need to be silent looking at me. If they are not, then the school behaviour policy step system kicks in.

That's a good idea pudding25, thank you, I have a Countdown clock that plays various different things so might give that a bash. What are the steps in your policy just out of interest? I feel we have too many steps before the actual consequence in ours!

I usually do the count down from 5 to 0 and award raffle tickets to those who do comply (the others get the message pretty quickly). I've also used a digital kitchen timer set to however many minutes to see if we can beat the clock and also used it running up from zero to see how long it takes the class to be ready to listen/line up/start PE etc. etc. they then try to beat the clock. My most challenging Y6 enjoyed that the most and got moving the tables off the carpet area and being in position on the carpet down to 18 seconds!

Do they get housepoints that you can take away?

I'm not a teacher but as my kids have got older my motto is "the carrot is much more effective than the stick"!

I use the free "Talk Traffic Lights" from Fiery Ideas - in the freebie section www.fieryideas.com/freebies-1-c.asp

Our school uses a traffic light system too. They all start on Green, warning takes them to Amber, then if they move to Red there's a punishment. There's a photo of each child on Green where they all start the day. The photo moves to Amber or Red if they play up. Red punishment is clear, so if they hit red they go straight to a time out zone (sitting on a chair away from the rest of the class). If they come back they're on Amber, but can soon back to Green. If they play up though, they're back to Red, but this time they have to go and sit in another class. Any more disruption after that and they have to go straight to the Head. It's a sort of zero tolerance thing with simple steps that they all understand and seems to work really well.

at caz10's jingle bells up her arse.
They'll all be leaving soon......

i say
be quiet.

One thing I do with students occasionally is tell everyone to stand up and put their hands in the air and watch me. I stand at the front with my hands in the air wide apart. Then they all have to clap when I do- which they can only do by concentrating hard. It is great fun and gets everyones attention.

Thanks all!

I've done clapping too, worked at the start of the year but now they all think they are too cool...
I think the secret is probably to alternate what I do.

Support from the Head, now that would be a novelty!!

mrz that is a great website, thanks!

Not long to go, not long to go...