• Overview
• Management skills
• Managing classroom episodes
• Whole school issues
• In addition...  

Reflective activites

These activities begin with a checklist of some questions worth considering on moving into a new school in order to examine the ethos and values of the school.

• Checklist: To find out about a school’s policies and practices with regard to behaviour management

Management Skills

In the first activity in this section we focus on some key classroom management skills which impact on individual teachers. The first activity focuses on skills which contribute to accurate observation of behaviour. The second activity focuses on your own management skills in the classroom. This is followed by a series of activities designed to encourage thinking about the coping strategies teachers and pupils might use in the classroom. This section concludes with an activity which invites consideration of definitions of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

• What impact do friendships have on pupils’ learning?
  

Managing Classroom Episodes

The first activities in this section focus on three issues which pose particular management challenges to the flow of sessions. These are the `beginnings' of sessions; `transitions' between phases of sessions or between sessions themselves; and the `endings' of sessions. There are also checklists which consider strategies for dealing with general misbehaviour and ongoing problem behaviour. The final three activities encourage exploration of ways of coping with the more serious on going problems that can also exist in any classroom, such as those associated with an individual child who has particular difficulties, and to reflect on the experiences which we provide if pupils respond problematically, rather than simply trying to apportion blame elsewhere.

• What do you do when faced with challenging behaviour?
• What strategies can we use to deal with inappropriate behaviour and when can we use them?
  
• How might we reduce disruptive behaviour and help our pupils to stay on-task?
• How can we manage young children’s misbehaviour effectively?
  

Whole School Issues

The first two checklists and the first activity in this section put planning, undertaking and reflecting on classroom practice, and school behaviour policy under the spotlight. The following three activities suggest a way of considering how teachers and pupils view various forms of behaviour which might be encountered in the classroom. In conclusion, there is a checklist which outlines principles which are useful to have in mind when considering the principles of effective sanctions, and an activity which explores the range of sanctions operating in your school.

• How effective and useful is your school’s behaviour policy?
• How far do your schools' rules for behaviour reflect the school ethos?
  
• What do your pupils think about behaviour in school?
• What sanctions do you use in your school in relation to pupils’ behaviour?
  
• How can we identify the needs of particular groups of pupils?
  
• What language should we use in describing pupils’ behaviour?
  
• What impact do friendships have on pupils’ learning?