1. Primary and Secondary behaviour:
Primary: The main undesired behaviour.
Secondary: The behaviour that happens during talking with them about the Primary behaviour.
When talking to the student about their behaviour keep going back to the primary behaviour and ignore (for now) the secondary behaviour (like them swearing, rolling their eyes, excuses etc) as students will sidetrack you. Don’t take the bait. Stick with addressing their primary behaviour and come back to the secondary behaviour later if you need to. If you engage in an argument with a secondary behaviour while you’re addressing the primary, you have lost.
2. Be Calm: No matter how severe the primary behaviour is - a calm approach is needed. Don't React. Respond. Control your emotions in your response. Yelling and getting mad with them is what you want to do and what they are used to. They will respect you (usually at a later date) for talking to them in a respectful manner. Use manners even in these situations. There will be times you will raise your voice in front of the class the difference is you will be responding and not reacting. When you do, it should be controlled as you have been practising this calmer approach. I feel the contrast between being calm in your tone for the majority of the time and then raising your voice occasionally is necessary for students to understand you are serious and also human.
3. Routine: The more consistent the routine in your class the better behaviour you’ll see. The routine can slowly progress as you get to know your students however try not to change things too much too quickly. Also being consistent with your behaviour is important too. I use www.classroomscreen.com as my consistent approach.
4. Classroom Screen: https://classroomscreen.com/ I use this for everything as it’s a great visual aid. You can save different screens for particular classes or activities. It’s great for the lesson's agenda, their name on the board for positives/negatives, a timer, QR Code, Poll, random name selector, images, stopwatch, and videos.
Classroom Screen is part of my daily routine and the students know to come in and read what we are doing for the day. It’s also good to reduce ‘teacher talk’. I find I can type instructions instead of talk and students tend to respond to this better than me talking to them.
5. Praise out loud, Discipline discretely: Praise should be quick and to the point so that most students can hear. Tell them why in just a few words. “Well done on getting started”. When you discipline a student do it somewhere preferably out of view and earshot. You don’t want an audience when needing to have a chat. Again, make it quick and to the point. Use the well-being angle. Eg ‘is everything alright?” “Do you need help getting your pen and book out?” Talk about their behaviour and not them personally. For example: ‘Your behaviour is terrible right now” or "your behaviour today is not okay, is everything alright?"
6. Carrots: You need a carrot or a reward to offer when students finish their work and do it well. “Do this, then you get this”. Learn what the class likes as rewards and use that as your carrot. An example of Carrot could be free time, screen time or outside play etc.
7. Silence is louder than yelling: Start a timer on Classroom screen (or on your phone) and wait. A visible clock seems to get students to be quiet quicker. There is no time limit (don’t tell them this) and you will not start until everyone listens. The time you wait is transferred to a consequence that is relevant to that time. Or do a tally on the board. Everytime you are interrupted you put another tally up. Each tally represents 1 minute of staying back in detention to practice being quiet.
Stand somewhere in the classroom so everyone can see you, be confident in your body language, use eye contact and scan the room. You need to be active in your pursuit for them to be quiet. Don’t name names. Use simple language like ‘there are a few students still talking’ or ‘stop talking’’, ‘I can hear a couple of students still talking.
8. Time and Place: This is my go-to saying. It works for almost all types of behaviour in the classroom. I'll explain and do activities about 'time and place' in week 1 to explain the saying to my students. I will talk about how there is a time and place for everything we do. From throwing a ball around, yelling, swearing, running, eating, being silly, relaxing, being on our phones etc. When talking to students about undesired behaviour I almost can always come back to this saying.
9. My job is a teacher: We are referred to as teachers. ‘You are a teacher’ and I have thought that we are not teachers. Our JOB is a teacher. We are Dad’s, Mum’s, Son’s, Daughters, Sister's, Brothers and people. I feel that some students think we are just ‘a teacher’. Talking about your family with students is a good strategy to build rapport and get students to know who you are as a person. Students seem to respect you if you can show them you are just a person and your job is a teacher.
10. Fun: Students are at school for their friends and to have fun. It’s not about us, it’s about them. Your expectations and reality will probably differ and this is where we as teachers can feel like we have failed. You came up with a lesson plan and have spent so much time in the program and in your mind thought these activities will be great for this class. Then it goes pear-shaped. All that time you have spent. We have all been there many times and it's normal. If the students are safe and happy then you’re all good.
I have left out Building Rapport as a tip as we know building relationships is very important for teaching. Apart from getting to know the students, I feel like these 10 tips are building rapport. If you were to use all or some of these you are building rapport.
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