If you don’t like Paul Dix...

[PastTheGin]

...what would be your top tips for dealing with “that” class on a rainy and windy Friday afternoon?

I think the knowledge that wet and windy Friday P5 will be a more difficult lesson to teach than Monday P1 is actually quite powerful to have. New teachers see lessons as lessons and plan according to their SOW then come out of Fri P5 thinking ‘what the hell happened there?’. It’s not just that class either - my normally lovely Y7s were pretty lively yesterday.

Experienced teachers will put the end of topic test on Friday and start teaching trigonometry on Monday because they know starting a new tricky topic when everyone is tired, crabby and looking at the clock isn’t the best way to teach.

Agree with a silent starter to settle them, consolidation work independently, and maybe some sort of interactive quiz/game at the end if they work well.

That’s very negative language and it could be quite damaging for your NQT to suffer teacher blaming for having high expectations of the children so early in their career.

🤦🏽‍♀️

No bloody wonder NQTs are such snowflakes. There’s ‘teacher blaming’ and there’s the very real situation of someone with poor behaviour management and a lack of self awareness. That person fails to see that they’re making it worse.

Can they go and observe another colleague with really good behaviour management? Ideally someone who doesn’t have an out there personality or relies on banter.

We did a bit of work on Bill Rodgers (I think that’s his name) at the start of the year. He is incredibly dull and you can’t imagine him controlling rowdy kids but he does have some good tips.

Give your nqt the Tom Bennett book to read. He saved me on my nqt year.

There’s ‘teacher blaming’ and there’s the very real situation of someone with poor behaviour management and a lack of self awareness. That person fails to see that they’re making it worse.

I don’t think that’s necessarily always the case. People can disagree without our certainty that one person is “headstrong”. Maybe they just disagree with the mentor about what this situation requires.

Yes, Tom Bennett is amazing. Not overly focused on zero tolerance, but very clear boundaries.

If by "headstrong" you mean they're 5 mins into their career and have decided how they think it should be then that attitude will be their downfall at some point.

In terms of advice I tell NQTs there's two strands to tricky classes/Friday last lessons:

Strand 1 - Consistency and expectations

• do they follow the school policy consistently for all children?
• are they clear with their routines and expectations in all lessons? Life will be much easier if they have entry/exit routines for every lesson and it will feed into last lesson on a Friday
• do they have the class trained to work in silence / quietly and independently for some time most lessons (it could be 10 mins or 45mins, the point is they learn that they're expected to focus)

Strand 2 - that last lesson feeling

• are they using their routines in that last lesson too? This should give them a smooth start
• could they start Friday last lesson with some sort of review quiz/activity to recall information from the week's learning? It's simple and gets them settled.
• avoid doing really complicated new material until the basics are sorted
• tasks recalling information are good, graphic organizers, revision grids etc

I honestly think that if they get strand 1 right and build relationships off the back of the respect gained then strand 2 should be minor changes and follow from it. Trying to improve strand 2 without strand 1 is setting themselves up to fail.

Can I ask which Tom Bennett book people are recommending? Is it the behaviour guru one or the NQT one? (or both).

LolaSmiles

Up to a point you are right, but an NQT isn’t “5 mins” in, they’ve been in a classroom for at least a year by that point, and they should have views and opinions. They should absolutely be open to hearing and trying out strategies based on other views and opinions, but I would expect an NQT to be able to be critical as well, and have their own emerging ideas of what works and what doesn’t. If, when I was an NQT, my mentor had told me not to use names on the board, never to send a child out of the classroom, to high five or shake hands with children on the way in to the classroom, to follow up issues with RJ conversations but never apologies or sanctions, I would have had very firm ideas about that. Maybe I am “headstrong”, but I think that’s a word you use to describe a dependent or subordinate, not a colleague.

Sansa

I really liked the behaviour guru.

I can't remember the title of the Tom Bennett book I read but I think it was his first. With lots of input from posters on the, then very active, tes boards. I think it was Behaviour Guru.

Thank you guys! I have bought the behaviour guru and started reading it- lots of useful stuff in there so far!

seaweedandmarchingbands
Of course they should have views, but as you say it should come with a sense of humility and an awareness of being very early on (I exaggerate with 5 mins but ultimately they've walked to the corner shop, not ran a marathon yet).
To me a "headstrong" NQT would be someone who thinks they have it nailed, that they know best, that they don't need to listen and take on board ideas, they talk the talk and can turn on a show but they lack the depth of knowledge that comes with experience.

For example, I can't stand Paul Dix or Pivotal as a school behaviour system, but i do believe restorative conversations have a place as part of a wider behaviour framework. Had I decided as an NQT that I didn't need to entertain other views (because the dominant model when I trained was "get them on side and make learning engaging / if your lesson is engaging you won't have behaviour issues") then that more nuanced view wouldn't have developed

If an NQT is more focused on why they are right than exploring a range of views with their mentor then that's problematic to me, and whilst their overconfidence might see them promoted quickly in the right school, it's style over substance.

Sansa Tom Bennett also has done lots of short videos on behaviour management that are really useful

www.tes.com/articles/behaviour-management-strategies-videos#.Xa97HiXTWEc