Warm-strict

[noblegiraffe]

Does anyone else want to vomit when they hear this? I’m hearing it increasingly often and it seems to be a propaganda replacement for ‘zero tolerance’.

It’s ‘yeah, I’m super-strict and don’t let the kids breathe out of turn but I’ll hug them on results day’, isn’t it?

I've not heard this one yet. I'd actually describe myself as on the warmer end of the strict spectrum... I can be pretty ferocious when provoked!

Aha! It's Doug Lemov Teach Like A Champion. He is in vogue at the moment.

I do wonder if all these American ideas have ever actually been properly researched and tested in the UK, with our different educational system and exam type outcomes.

teachinglikechampions.weebly.com/warmstrict.html

Visited a school like this.

You know what, it was great.

It's no zero tolerance regime. It's low tolerance but with some leeway. So those kids who are having a shit time at home? They get some talk through time. They get time out card if needed, temporarily. Then it gets slowly removed over time.

It's smiling at the door, saying good morning etc but taking no shit with poor behaviour.

As @Strickomaster on twitter would say: you promote what you permit, you permit what you promote.

I'm not normally one to go with theories like this but Tbh it seems like good "in loco parentis".

Have a sense of humour. Have a chat with the kids at lunch. Make a numpty of yourself at charity day having wet sponges chucked at you.

But in lesson time, in your classroom, or in your school....then there's expectations.

I'd describe my way as being this.
But I think it's just about mutual respect - you respect me and I'll respect you. If you are disrespectful in my class - you'll quickly know about it!

I agree that warm strict works. It’s what I try to be.
It’s not about being strict and shouty for half the year and then being nice on results days or sports day or on the school trip to Alton Towers. It’s about being warm and being strict at the same time... all the time. It’s about enforcing the rules and applying punishments without needing to be cold or shouty or angry. You can stay pleasant and friendly whilst still saying “I’m sorry but these are the rules and this is the punishment”.
It generally works well in our school. I don’t think we’ve ever used the term warm/strict but it is, effectively, what our policy is.

The people who use it seem to be on the very strict side of the fence. It seems to be their way of saying ‘but not because I hate kids, I actually like them’.

It’s this need to label and make things a ‘thing’. Aren’t most teachers warm strict in that they enforce rules and like kids?

I have high standards, meet them and I'm lovely. Those that try their best (even if their best isn't top grades) and do what they're meant to will tell you I'm the best. Those that don't will tell you something very different. Most fall into line eventually.

Lots of teachers aren’t warm-strict in my experience. I’ve come across a fair few who are neither warm nor strict (usually a total disaster), some who are strict but could never be described as warm and some who are warm but not strict. I think teachers can do well in this job as long as they are at least one of those things consistently.
I try to be both. There is an English teacher at my school who is always consistently both and watching her deal with a kid kicking off is amazing. I’ve learned a lot from colleagues who are most definitely warm-strict.

I'd say from reading the description this is generally what I try to do in the classroom but I didn't know it had a name 😂

Interesting read. I had never thought about it, but this is definitely me. I work in a very challenging primary school, and I will sit with a pupil under the stairs, wait until they have calmed down, hear them out... but insist they go back to class, apologise to the teacher for calling her a fu@&ing c#%t and take the repercussions on the chin.

And (sometimes to my surprise 😉) they like me. I live locally, and have spent a summer bumping into 5-12 year olds in the park/ supermarket / on buses, and they all come over and say ‘hi’. I like kids a lot, but I am not there to be liked, but to help them be the best they can be, and implement school rules and they get that.

I think it’s about them realising you like them - but rules is rules. I will banter, and like a joke (I trained as a secondary teacher before primary), but I will say ‘there is a line between funny and cheeky and you are just about to cross it’ as I do to my own 3, even to y3s and they get and respect that.

Just seen this on twitter - it appears I’m not the only one who thinks that it’s zero tolerance rebranded

You won’t see zero tolerance or no excuses schools any more, just warm strict ones.

I think you're right noble. I ma not sure PPs have interpreted your OP in the way you meant them to. Lots of teachers might view themselves as warm strict, but none of the definitions of themselves in their posts (especially Sydenham) sound Michaela or GYCS or Magna.

Oh, and look! There's Lehain, calling it a 'movement'.

Zero tolerance definitely suffered from a branding problem. And invited the inevitable ‘would you give them a detention for lack of equipment if lightning struck their pencil case and set it on fire right in front of your eyes?’

Warm strict on the other hand sounds nice.

Warm strict to me means no shouting, or "getting at" kids. Zero tolerance to me means absolutely no back chat. No leeway. No answering back. What I say goes, end of.

With warm strict you might let a kid gob off for 5 minutes but then once they've done you still persist and get the consequence done.

It takes far more skill to be warm strict, especially at SLT level. It says "I'll listen to you. But there are lines and crossing them means consequences.

My head is great. Calm, collected gets raging kids out the loos or corridors, stropping parents.... and in the end gets exactly what she plans to.

She just does it with diplomacy, tact and consistency.

Oh and the kids are definitely respectful. Some have described her as scary as she never loses her temper. I find her warm, funny and very approachable but I wouldn't mess with her.

That's skill to do that.

But Belinda with the zero tolerance people there would be no gobbing off for 5 minutes!

Exactly.

That's the difference between warm strict and zero tolerance.

Warm strict has far more humanity. It has less "stressy" feel.

Zero tolerance is harder lined.

Kids are kids.

There's gonna be gobbing off....from kids or parents at some point.

The problem with calling strict behaviour policies “zero tolerance” or “no excuses” or “no exceptions” is the fact that ultimately there is always some situation that is an exception somewhere. The lightning striking the pencil case is exactly the sort of thing that gets thrown out when you say “we have a zero tolerance policy”. It’s not literally zero tolerance, even in those super-strict school there will be some situation, however rare, where an allowance or exception is made. Warm-strict is actually a much better description for how most “strict” schools operate. Whether it’s an appropriate term for all of the super strict schools claiming to be warm-strict is less clear. I don’t have direct experience of them so couldn’t say.

I think it's about the atmosphere.

The school I visited the kids talked to staff, there was warmth but definitely respectful.

There was clear, consistent approach. One 'demerit' a day warranted a conversation with form tutor. Any more was detention. That day. Centralised and run by SLT and staff on a rota.

Now that won't work in very rural areas but it was as much the kids knew what was happening and the consequences. There was some leeway there. Lose your pen? Get a demerit but sort out a loan from friend or teacher before next lesson. If there's real issues it'll get flagged up and we will help you....but don't take the piss, basically.

I had a back-to-work dream last night where I was trying to do warm-strict and I ended up telling a range of ex-colleagues and Ofsted inspectors to shut up and then smiling while teachers I mentor told me that it didn't look like competence to them. That was excellent.

That’s amazing, Elizabeth. Telling Ofsted to shut up definitely beats the usual ‘Y8 running riot and not doing anything I say’ back-to-work dream.

Oh god yes!! The joy of telling Ofsted where to go IRL would be immense 🤣