Hiya,
Being an ECT is really hard, especially managing behaviour on your own for the first time!
My best advice would be for her to find a system that works best for her in her classroom (within the school's behaviour policy, of course) and to use that consistently and follow through with everything. She should make her system really clear at the start of the year, and remind students throughout the year.
This applies to positive and negative behaviour. I try to verbally recognise and reward as much positive behaviour as I can (following instructions, kindness, contributing to the class etc.) and I put positive points on our system.
My system for negative behaviour that also aligns with school policy is:
- Students get a verbal warning if they are not meeting expectations.
- If this persists for a second time within that lesson, they receive a negative point on the school system and they come back and see me for 5 minutes at break or lunch (I decide when).
- This escalates to 15 minutes on the third occasion, and on the fourth occasion they are parked in another classroom and the detention escalates to 30 minutes.
- Non-attendance to my detentions results in upscaling 5/15/30 minutes, and then it is a whole-school after school that I do not have to supervise.
Students cannot "work off" my sanctions, but they can also earn positives within that same lesson, for example if they lend someone equipment.
It's definitely about finding your own way of working, and then sticking to it!
Teaching is such a manic job and it can be hard to stay on top of who has got warnings or sanctions, who is meant to be coming back for detentions etc., and of course it does encroach on my free time, but I find that generally students don't tend to escalate beyond the second warning (5 minute detention) as they know I follow through with the upscaling.
I start every lesson with a seating plan and a pencil, so whenever anything occurs positive or negative I can note it down on the seating plan, carry on with the lesson, keep track of behaviour, and then allocate positives/negatives/detentions after the lesson - if I don't write down who has got warnings or positives etc. I will forget!
Obviously this is not the solution to all negative behaviour, but it certainly helps for me at least for the students to know that I mean what I say.
EDITED to add: I also try and keep my tone neutral at all times when talking to students who are not meeting my expectations, and also I do not enter into conversations about behaviour during the lesson as that wastes more time - I use the break/lunch detentions for that. If a student is talking back I will just repeat "We will discuss this at break"... eventually they give up once I've said it enough times!