For some of the students we are teaching, exemplary behaviour will be natural. For many, it won’t be. Students need to be taught how to behave. This is why Tom Bennett, the behaviour tsar for the Westminster government, suggests that behaviour is effectively its own curriculum. Teachers’ mastery of this curriculum is as important as mastery of their subject.
Six areas of this “student behaviour curriculum” are key:
- Expectations
- Rules
- Routines
- Corrections and consequences
- Praise and rewards
- Relationships
A ‘student behaviour curriculum’
Expectations
The classroom culture that we should be aiming for is one of mutual respect and cooperation. This won’t come about naturally. Rather, it needs to be developed, step by step. Fundamental to this development are the expectations of the teacher. The higher these are, the more you will get from your students, and the better they are likely to behave.
This was brought home to me recently when I had a conversation with a teacher who had been struggling with poor student behaviour but who had cracked the problem.
“I suddenly realised my expectations weren’t high enough,” he told me. “I wasn’t clear in my own mind what I expected. I had heard other people say, ‘You need to have high expectations,’ and I thought that I did because I believed that was right, but then I realised I didn’t, because I wasn’t clear what my expectations were. Now I am, and so are my students. Everything is so much better.”
Rules
Rules are necessary to ensure that expectations are met. They set out what specifically is acceptable and what is not.
For example, you might have a broad expectation for students to be polite and courteous. You need specific rules to ensure this happens. These might include students putting up a hand when they want to speak, and never interrupting anyone. You might have a broad expectation that jotter work should be set out neatly. Specific rules might include that the date is always written in the margin, and headings are underlined using a ruler.
Rules are essential to ensure calm and ordered learning environments. Their absence is a surefire route to chaos and disaffection. If you have ever tried to play any game when no one knows the rules, or players are allowed to break the rules, you will understand this. No one enjoys it.
You can’t assume that students will “just know” your rules. How could they? You need to tell them. They need to practise applying them. You need to give them feedback about this. Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s teaching.
Routines
Over time, the use of rules helps to establish routines. When a routine is established, specific behaviours “just happen” because everyone knows that’s what is supposed to happen. Routines make everyone’s life easier, because students don’t constantly need reminding about what the rules are. They are as important for teachers as they are for students.
Corrections and consequences
As important as everyone being clear about the rules and routines of a classroom is everyone being clear about what will happen if these aren’t followed. This will involve a combination of corrections and consequences. Corrections are subtle prompts and reminders. Consequences are more serious than this.
Here are some examples of corrections:
- A non-verbal intervention, such as a “look” or a hand gesture.
- Use of a student’s name.
- Asking a question to get a student’s attention.
- Stopping what you are saying and standing still, looking at the student whose attention you expect.
- Moving towards a student as you are speaking.
- Having a quiet, private word with a student.
And here are some examples of consequences:
- Giving a warning.
- Asking a student to step out of the room for a moment.
- Moving a student’s seat.
- Phoning or emailing home.
- Issuing a detention.
Ideally, we would never have to use corrections or consequences, because student behaviour would be perfect. But this is unrealistic and not making use of them is foolish. No student ever acts perfectly all of the time. If we don’t use corrections and consequences, the one certain thing is that standards of behaviour will slide.
Corrections should have more of a use in our lessons than consequences. If we find ourselves issuing consequences on a regular basis, there is an underlying systemic issue that needs to be addressed. Consequences will quickly lose their effect if they are over-used in this way. Their principal purpose is as a deterrent to stop poor behaviour from happening in the first place. It is the knowledge that a consequence exists and could be used that is most powerful.
Praise and rewards
A common delusion in the teaching profession is that praise motivates students. Often, it doesn’t. Saying “great work!” to a student will only help to motivate them if it accompanies experience of success. If students aren’t experiencing success, the motivating effects of praise will quickly become diluted.
However, this doesn’t mean that our classrooms should be praise-free zones. While it might not always motivate students to learn, praise can make them feel good, which is an important feature of any learning environment.
Just as consequences are a more formal form of correction, rewards are a more formal form of praise. They include things such as phone calls home, postcards and certificates.
Most students love rewards. However, like praise, they quickly lose their value if we use them too often. They need to be earned. Earning a reward should take quite a bit more effort than earning praise.
Relationships
The relationships balance that we should be aiming for in schools is that which teacher and author Doug Lemov suggests: warm-strict. We should be warm in our interactions with students and strict in our insistence that expectations are met.
For some, the word “strict” has developed negative connotations. This is misguided. Some of the best teachers I know, who have some of the best teacher-student relationships I have seen, are also the strictest teachers I know.
“Strict” means insisting that rules and routines are followed, and that corrections and consequences are applied fairly. In plain language, it means we’re more than happy to have a laugh but we won’t put up with any nonsense - and in that context, everyone’s learning benefits.
Bruce Robertson is the rector (headteacher) of Berwickshire High School. He tweets @TTDelusion. This article draws from his latest book, The Teaching Delusion 3: power up your pedagogy
