Read Tes or hang around Twitter and it is not long before
you come across an article or thread about behaviour in schools. I’ve read
many, wanting to glean any nugget of advice that will make Friday lesson 4 with
that Y9 class that bit more bearable. Yet, after working in three different
school contexts I feel like I’ve learned a lot about behaviour. The only
problem is the more I’ve learned the more I think I have come to the
realisation that most behaviour advice would not have helped me in those early
days of teaching, not because the advice is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ but because
ultimately there is only a limited impact you, as an individual teacher, can
have on behaviour within your own classroom.
Behaviour starts at
the top
When I began my teaching career through the Teach First
route, I was placed in a school ‘in challenging circumstances’. We don’t pick
the school but are allocated it and we have to remain at that school through
our ITT and NQT years. Having struggled with difficult classes for two years I
decided for my own sanity to move on. It was move on or quit teaching.
Thankfully, I decided to give another school a go and I decided to apply for a
school that was infamous for having a strict behaviour policy. It was only
through this move, that I was able to gain the much needed perspective on
‘behaviour’. Sadly, what I learned doesn’t really help any poor ITTs or NQTs in
the same boat I was in because what I learned was behaviour is this: Behaviour
is about culture and ethos and culture and ethos start with leadership in a
school. Put bluntly, if your school leadership don’t prioritise this, there is
only a limited amount your own behaviour management is going to have.
Looking back, this realisation has given me the perspective
to understand that teachers are not the ones who are ‘failing’, it is much more
likely that leadership is failing, not only teachers but pupils too. Let’s be
very clear: it is the most vulnerable that benefit form a culture of good
behaviour and high expectations.
‘You’re nothing
without that earpiece mate’
Picture the scene: It is Friday lesson 4. You have that Y9
class that is a potent mixture of rowdy boys, sullen girls, a few big
characters and a pocket of quiet pupils who you feel a tremendous sense of guilt
for as they try and get through your worksheet, clear in the knowledge they
won’t get half the help they deserve in this lesson. You’ve tried everything
that helpful colleagues and mentors have told you might ‘engage’ them. The
hours spent meticulously planning the lesson at 9pm last night, are wasted, as
always.
After the second or third serious behaviour incident you get
someone to call for SLT or a Learning Manager. Five minutes later they arrive
and the riot quickly ceases. They take out the main offender and have ‘a chat’.
As soon as they leave the room, the riot ensues and you question ‘why don’t
they behave for me? Why don’t they respect me?’. Ten minutes later, with the
main culprit of mayhem removed, the lesson simmers down, pupils are mainly
getting on with their work. You feel relieved that the lesson is not a complete
write off. But wait, in comes SLT again, ‘they’ve had a chat and now the pupil
has agreed that they will take part in your lesson’. No obvious sanction,
restorative practice in action! As soon as SLT leaves, the pupil, smirking,
resumes their reign of mischief. Another lesson ruined.
The example above is probably very familiar in some schools
and would be a weekly, if not daily, occurrence. What it shows is that some SLT
will never see behaviour as an issue because the pupils have learned who they
need to behave for, and who they don’t. As SLT are the gatekeepers of serious
sanctions (such as isolation or parent meetings) pupils quickly learn that they
only need to behave for them. This is compounded by the undermining of teacher
authority, every time a pupil is taken out by SLT ‘for a chat’ and returned to
your lesson with a guarantee that they will now ‘participate’, the message to
pupils is clear: Your teacher has no authority therefore you can do as you
please. By having a ‘chat’ there is a tacit implication that your word as a
teacher, as the adult in the room, is equal to that of the misbehaving pupil.
This subtly and insidiously undermines your authority forevermore.
I once overheard a belligerent Y11 pupil shout ‘you’re
nothing without that earpiece mate’ at his Learning Manager and was struck by
how perceptive a comment that was. When pupils learn that it is only certain
senior adults that have any meaningful authority in your school, and that
authority is arbitrary and flexible, then it is the classroom teachers that
suffer.
‘Get the kids to like
you’
When you have no clear behaviour policy, teachers face a
Wild West of trial and error to work out a way to get even the minimum standard
of workable behaviour in their lessons. The perennial advice of ‘make sure your
lessons are engaging’, much lauded by ITT mentors has been much debated on
Twitter. Thankfully, this harmful myth is being rightly challenged. Whilst there
is no doubt that a poorly planned lesson can exacerbate behaviour problems in a
classroom, it is by no means an effective way of stopping behaviour issues.
Sadly, I wasted many a night on trying to think of engaging ways to deliver my
lessons and all this did was ensure I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted them
to learn, but what I thought they might want to do. A terrible, terrible model
of teaching in hindsight. However, that said, there was no way I could have
done half the things I do now in my first school. Model an answer on the board?
There is no way I could have turned my back on the class for even ten seconds
without chaos ensuing!
Perhaps one of the more unusual pieces of advice I received
from my school mentor was ‘get the kids to like you’. Now, this clearly
terrible advice, but in certain schools it is logical advice. We know that pupils
‘should’ behave whether they like you or not however, this advice is merely a
symptom of a poorly lead behaviour culture. In a culture of poor behaviour and
lax policies, techniques like this are what experienced teachers do to survive.
And it is about survival. Unfortunately for an inexperienced teacher,
negotiating the line between being liked (and a push over) and liked (and
respected) is very difficult. More often than not, only the former is achieved
making life more difficult in the long run. The real consequence of this type
of teaching (being the likeable pushover) is that pupils do not learn anything.
‘They behave for me’
Take another example: You are sitting in the staffroom
regaling your colleagues about the car crash lesson you have just had when
someone pipes up ‘I had them last year, they behaved for me.’ Clearly, the lack
of emotional intelligence exhibited by your colleague is enough to take your
breath away, however, despite this, it is a phrase that you will have heard
again and again in a school with poor behaviour. As a new teacher all you hear,
in your pit of despair, is: ‘I am a good teacher and you are not’. Thus
confirming every late night anxiety you try your best to ignore and push aside.
Yet, this again is only a symptom of a poor behaviour
culture. To have survived long enough to be an experienced colleague in this
environment, chances are your ‘helpful’ colleague is a bit of a maverick. They
will have their own ways of dealing with things, they have been there so long
that the kids know and understand their reputation. If I’m being perfectly
honest, although teachers like this inevitably make your life more difficult in
comparison, I can hardly blame them when this has allowed them to weather this
difficult job for such an admirable amount of time.
All I will say is don’t look to these teachers for advice,
don’t think these are the lessons you should observe, you are unlikely to learn
anything that will help YOU as a new teacher.
What I’ve learned…
For what it’s worth
So, if you are reading this blog to gain some nuggets of
wisdom in your ITT or NQT year, I’m afraid I don’t have them. What I do have is
perspective. If (like I did), you are thinking you’re a terrible teacher, that
can’t manage behaviour, that teaching is clearly not for you, all I can say is…
you are wrong. You are a great teacher because you care and because you don’t
want to settle for poor behaviour and low expectations for your pupils.
Fighting back against a poor behaviour culture is the most mentally and
physically exhausting thing you will ever do… but the fact that you do do it is
a reminder of why the profession needs people like you. You can be the best
teacher in the world but if you work in a school that does not have a positive
behaviour culture, with strict boundaries and clear expectations, that is
consistent and fairly applied across the whole school, you will struggle with
behaviour in your lesson. Yes, there are things you can do to minimise this,
slightly, but you are not a failure. Your school is failing you by not
supporting you.
One of the most important lessons I learned was that if you
think teaching is not for you, it is probably that your school is not for you.
It has taken me three schools in five years to find (what I hope) is ‘my
school’. Instead of giving you advice that is only ever going to be limiting
(and which others have done better) I will instead give you my top tips to look
for in a school before you apply:
- A clearly defined behaviour policy with clear sanctions and consequences.
- A calm and focused classroom environment, even with new teachers.
- Calm change overs between lessons and at break and lunch time.
- Visible SLT on the corridors and in classrooms
- Centralised detentions
If a school has these in place then it is likely that you
will have a supportive environment where you can concentrate on teaching at
your best. That’s what you came into teaching to do. Isn’t that what you deserve?
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