Advice on behaviour management in secondary.

[Tailrunner]

I'm in my fourth year of teaching in a lovely school and generally really enjoy my job. However, I'm a still struggling with managing the behaviour in some classes - generally year 9/10 classes with a large number of decent but loud/challenging pupils. I can manage the really bad behaviour but it's when I have a big group of pupils who are all loud and a bit rude or just easily distracted. I'm getting better but very slowly and it seems to take me ages to win them over and actually get them on side. My current year 10s have no respect atm and I struggle to be strict enough/manage behaviour without feeling that I am just constantly moaning and being negative. They don't take me very seriously. We have some great lessons then some awful ones. The pupils are (almost) all really nice individually but turn in to a rowdy mob when they are together.

My HOD has observed me and just said to carry on but it's something I'd really like to work on. I don't know where to start though as I'm not completely sure where I am going wrong. Can anyone recommend any training courses/CPD that might help? Any tips or suggestions?

Hi, sorry I don’t have any advice but I’m in a similar boat

Not sure what you have tried and I’m sure you have already tried the following but…

Routine - have a calm starter task when they arrive, I always find that the first few minutes set the tone for the lesson so even a straightforward copying task (so they can’t ask any questions!)

Seating plan - play around with it, with chatty classes sometimes giving them the opportunity to sit with a friend can work to reduce chat if you explain that you are trusting them and they have to show how focused they can be (or with other classes completely separate them)

Build up relationships with your biggest characters (ask them about things that interest them or find out a subject they are interested in and comment on how well you have heard they are doing) but also don’t neglect the quiet ones to keep them going

Introduce short term quiet tasks (5-10 mins) then lengthen them as they get better. If they do it successfully you can praise so you don’t feel like you’re bagging all of the time

Try to balance out any nagging with praise for good answers etc to keep a nicer atmosphere

Competition for some classes works well even with year 9 and 10

Ultimately just keep going, they will have good and bad days so try to remember the good

Thanks Daisy4569,

Some great advice, I've tried most or all of those things but I need to make sure I'm doing them consistently. The calm starter is probably where I'm falling down if I think about it. Several pupils have a habit of arriving late and coming in noisily which disrupts the start of the lesson. Then half the class gets distracted asking where they've been and the chatting or shouting out starts.

I'll work on managing that for the next few lessons and hope that helps with having more good than bad lessons. Thanks.

Smile.

My natural expression is resting bitch face. I was often fielded into sorting out difficult groups and I was very good at it, i.e it happened the next year.

With one group that was grinding me down a bit, like yours, not horrible but loud, I decided always to be actively smiling when I went into the classroom. This was on top of the particular strategies others have suggested. I should say that in Australia, teachers don't have classrooms as they do in the UK, so I was always walking towards a bunch of students waiting to be let into the room. Like a cat walk.

It worked a treat and I had a swimming year with them. Eventually.

Thanks echt, I quite possibly start the lesson looking as though I'm just waiting for trouble . I'll make more an effort to smile as they come in.

I think I often talk a bit too quickly and with too much energy IYKWIM. I gesture a lot and rarely stand still for long. I love my subject and with most classes I think (hope) it engages them but I need to work on being calmer with classes that already have too much energy.

I should say, every other teacher had problems with the group I described. Eventually, I had observation requests so they could see what I did!!!! :o While I'm methodical, I really think the smile worked. They were so used to teachers, quite correctly, not being thrilled to see them

Latecomers was not a big issue, so I can't help here. In general I would settle them and speak to the latecomers after everyone else was settled. I would never ever repeat the introduction of the lesson for them. For a special treat I would keep them back at recess, lunch, or after school to explain what they had missed:o Just 5 minutes, but by God it pisses them off.

One good thing is small group work, not friends and no more than three. Tell the group one of them will have to report back on the discussion but don't tell them who you will ask.

I wish I could be that teacher instead of feeling like I'm the one who can't manage behaviour .

I'll keep trying all these tips and hope they come round. A couple of key characters are excluded next week so it will be interesting to see how the class are without them there.

Definitely make the most of losing some of your big characters. If you can get a couple of good lessons in before they return the others will be more settled and you will have more confidence and be more positive when they return.

I was very bad at behaviour management when I started teaching. I'm a drama teacher and I improved by using status skills that I'd learned in acting training. I'm naturally a low status player* so I had to get into into the habit of playing high status: standing still and straight, not moving my head as I talk, talking at a slow pace, lowering the pitch of my voice, always standing balanced on both feet not pacing or balancing on one foot. I ise a lot of other techniques already mentioned but I think the importance of giving off high status signals is often overlooked.

(*There's a book called Impro where an improvisation expert Keith Johnstone writes about how everyone plays high or low status - both serve a purpose: high status = don't bite me, I'll bite back and Low status = don't bite me, it's not worth it. I realised I was very much in the second category and a lot of things about my struggles with behaviour management started to make sense)

@Tailrunner

I wish I could be that teacher instead of feeling like I'm the one who can't manage behaviour .

I'll keep trying all these tips and hope they come round. A couple of key characters are excluded next week so it will be interesting to see how the class are without them there.

I was thinking about what I just said about that class, and while I did the right things, I'm sure the other teachers weren't slacking. In the end the group chose to cooperate. It's an element of behaviour management that's often glossed over, as if, if only the teacher did a text book lesson, it would all be good.

It's not a model found acceptable in the world outside school, yet somehow teachers are expected tp perform this miracle.

Routines are your friend. Greet at the door and make them stand behind their desks to greet you formally before you allow them to sit down. Have a silent starter ready for them that takes 5 minutes. This allows you time to do the register and sort out any issues with equipment. Do not tolerate any talking when you are talking or any comments when you have asked for silent working. Watch them like a hawk when you ask them to write silently and follow the school behaviour policy when they don’t follow instructions. It’s exhausting, but effective. Key to this though is a positive attitude and the ability to make them think they’re your favourite class. Fake it til you make it! 😂

Does your school behaviour policy have rules about lateness? It is so disruptive to lessons and my current school are crap about it so I've had to create my own routines which build in the expected lateness (that I'm not allowed to sanction).

Firstly, if a student is late they have to wait outside until I am ready to let them in. That means the on-time students don't have their learning disturbed by the latecomers.

Secondly, starters are my key time to focus on praise. They are always based on old work and pitched so that every student in the room can answer them. I praise two main things - getting each attempted question right (getting 6/6 gets as much praise as getting 10/10) and getting more right than the previous lesson.

Finally, my starters are reasonably long (around 5-7 mins for the kids plus 2 or 3 for me giving the answers and clearing up common mistakes). It is annoying to give up that much (our lessons are only 40 minutes) but it means that by the time I start the new content for the lesson I have all students in the class and everyone is settled.

Over time (2-3 years) I've found lateness has really reduced. I'd forgotten how bad it was at the start until we got a new NQT in the department this year.

Have you read “Running the Room”? Excellent advice in there. Also, you will not be the only one struggling with your tricky classes, although others might not admit it.

Thanks again for all the advice. I had my trickiest class today and tried to put as much of it into practice as I could- smiled as they arrived, quiet starter to get them settled, lots of praise for the students getting on, worked on speaking slowly and sounding and looking relaxed and in charge. The outcome was a decent lesson until the last 10 minutes when it got a bit loud and a few silly comments. A definite improvement (even if it was exhausting) so I'm going to keep going with it and hope it gets easier with practice - fake it till I make it as @BBCK said.

@MsGoodenough thank you. So much of that makes sense to me and I think I present as a low status player too so I'm working on how I stand and making sure the stress doesn't make it into my tone.

@echt I agree you need the pupils to cooperate. I'm don't want to be friends with the pupils but I do need then on side and they are more likely to cooperate if they believe I'm on their side and want them to do well and enjoy the lessons.

@FacebookPhotos we do have a late policy and the HOY is trying to deal with it but in the meantime its a real pain. Fortunately today I managed to get them in quickly and settled but I think if they are any later I will follow your plan.

@PenOrPencil I haven't read that one but I will add it to my kindle now. I know some other teachers in the school struggle with them but, although I have a lovely department, most of them are experienced and several are SLT. They seem to have forgotten what it's like to struggle with behaviour and just say I'm doing the right things, stick with it. The lack of pressure is great but it's not hugely helpful.

Praise. Praise. Praise. The good kids getting it right all the time? Praise them. The bad kids getting it right for the first time? Praise them. Every hand up, every attempt at an answer, every quiet when asked, praise them.

Phone calls home. Let their grown-ups know if it's not going well. Every time. But shit sandwich it - Johnny is great at Maths, he's a bit disruptive etc, but I have confidence he can get it right and make good progress. Tell the kids in advance that you're going to be making calls and explain what they can do to fix it.

Phone calls home if they get it right - even if it's just one tiny thing. Every kid likes a praise call!