“How do you make a
class behave?” Over the years this
is a question that I have been asked time and time again. The honest answer that I usually give is “I
don’t know; they just do”. So for the
first time this year I have tried to get down a few tips and tricks down on
paper to help my new PGCE student. Below
I have tried to outline my top ten tips, looking at the advantages &
pitfalls of each.
The carrot is better
than the stick
Most experienced teachers will have been in the position
where at some point in their career they have had to shout at students. However, a much more effective long term
solution getting students on side. One
key things that every teacher needs to consider in terms of behaviour
management is what your ratio of punishment to praise is. With experience, you’ll find that one of the
main tricks to get students to make progress within your lesson is the
effective use of praise. If students are
doing well, let them know. In the
classroom praise can take many forms. If
a student answers something well, acknowledge it. You can do it verbally or in written marking,
it’s up to you. Some other ways I’ve
seen to praise students is to send postcards home, give out star of the lesson
or if it fits into your school, give out house points. The main takeaway from this tip however, is
to remember to always give out more praise than punishment.
The quiet word
Students who get shouted at in one lesson, probably get
shouted at in other lessons. In fact,
they probably go through the day being shouted at in every lesson. Then to compound this, they possibly go home
and get shouted at. Students that are shouted at constantly become desensitised to it! This basically amounts to shouting at
students who get shouted at a lot is a waste of time as they simply stop taking
any notice of it. One trick that I have
used to great effect (especially when dealing with poorly behaved students from
other classes) is to talk to them quietly.
As this often is not what the student is expecting you almost immediately
get their attention. Talking quietly to
them also acts to diffuse the situation, as they will often be ready to argue
back when they are shouted at which they don’t seem to do when being talked
quietly to. I have found that this
method works very well with the individual, however, I wouldn’t necessarily use
this technique to deal with a whole class.
Non-verbal
instructions
Over the years, possibly to my horror or amusement, what
most students seen to remember about me after they’ve left is the fact that
they all drop silent when I click my fingers, and that they all respond hand
gestures. I’m not sure where this started,
but over the years the fact that students respond subliminally to these
non-verbal instructions has made life a lot easier. It’s almost like being a Jedi at times. If you want to give this method a go you have
to either start from the beginning of the year, or from the start of Year
7. The way that I do it, is to let the
students how you expect them to respond to the non-verbal instruction you
choose to use. The main trick with this
method is persistence at the start. If
you embrace it, your students will too.
Planning for
behaviour
Everyone’s heard the phrase “failure to prepare, is to
prepare to fail”. When it comes to planning
for behaviour there was never a truer phase.
When planning your lesson’s, you need to consider the effects your
activities will have on student behaviour.
I’m not going to linger on this point too long as there have been lots
already written on this topic, but in my opinion the most important things to
think about are:
- Don’t make any one activity too long as students may become board
- Try and ensure that there is a variety of activities as different students will prefer different things
- Don’t make students write things down just to fill time
- Get students up out of their seats as it will help them engage with the lesson
- If you’re doing a group activity, bear in mind which students are working with who
Where to sit students
This one probably applies to newer teachers than more experienced
ones, but it is a useful method to have tucked up your sleeve. I think at the start of every year, even if
you don’t get it down on paper, a class should be put into some sort of seating
plan. This serves a few different
purposes. The first and most important
one is that you can ensure that students who are going to distract each other
are not sat near each other. The second important
reason is to let students know that you are in charge of your room. The way that I like to sort out wear students
sit is to get them stood around the side of the room and then tell them where
to sit from there.
Don’t teach from the
front
Traditionally teachers teach from the front of the
room. Maybe it because we feel more comfortable
with a desk to hide behind? Don’t fall
into this trap! One epiphany I had
within my own teaching practice is that if you wander around students as they
are learning or as you are speaking to them, they tend to behave. You can now purchase cheaply a remote control
that fits into a USB port of your computer at the front of the room, so that
you can change your power point slides as you move around the class. One of the more novel techniques I use is to
push some desks together in the middle of the room, build some sort of large
teaching model, and then gather students around it while you use it to teach. This makes sure that all your students are relatively
close to you which will ensure that you can see everything that’s going
off. Once they realise this they tend to
behave.
Be sincere
The worse thing that I see time and time again when I observe
other members of staff, is when they go over the top with praise. If you are not sincere when giving praise to
students it can possibly do the exact opposite to what you are trying to achieve. If you are not being sincere, students will
see straight through it and it can put them off answering questions.
Use set routines
Once students have entered the
room one of the main keys to maintaining good behaviour is routine & being
organised. If you spend the start of the
lesson running around trying to sort out what you are doing, students will pick
up and exploit it. As far as routine
goes it’s pretty much down to personal preference. Some of the things that I have either used or
have seen other members of staff use are:
- Making sure that students know that they need to have their equipment and planers out at the start of the lesson.
- Never assume that students will automatically get these things out without being prompted.
- Make sure that your lesson title and key words are up on the board for students to get down as soon as they enter the room.
- You might want to put up a prompt or enquiry question that they need to think about and discuss after
Remember every lesson
should be a fresh start
My last and most important tip is to treat every lesson as a
fresh start. If a student has had a bad
lesson the last time you saw them, don’t go out of your way to remind
them. Talking to a student about a
previously bad lesson as soon as they enter your room, is basically setting
them up to fail before they start. If,
however a student has a much better lesson it is worth commenting on it at the
end.
As you move through your career I hope that some of these
methods help, and believe me when I say that you’ll find and use many others.
Thanks for reading
Chalky
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