Class Consequences

To be “readable” for our students, it is essential to have a clearly agreed and understood process of rewards and consequences to follow when expectations and agreements are met and not met.

- a whole school approach is highly desirable to ensure a school wide consistency and reduce variations between classrooms; these variations are the cause of many incidents that could otherwise be avoided.

- a significant proportion of student inappropriate behaviour arises from students becoming unsure and frustrated by having to adapt every class to differing teacher expectations and practices.

One process that has proven successful is as follows:

• should a student not meet an expectation, restate the expectation to the student; don’t argue, just adopt the “broken record” approach, eg “John you have not met our class agreed movement expectation, please be seated”
• don’t stand next to the student waiting for them to comply and meet the expectation; that may encourage a secondary, more serious behaviour, such as defiance
• just continue moving around the room with the expectation that the student will do the right thing
• should the student not meet and expectation again (not necessarily the same one), give him/her an official warning and note it in his/her planner
• should a third offence occur, give the student a 10 minute detention to meet with you at a recess, lunchtime or an agreed time, to discuss his/her understanding of the shared expectations and agreements
• be sure to document the incidents and outcomes and write a note home to parents in the student’s planner
• should a fourth offence occur, give the student a 20 minute detention, write a note in his/her planner for parents and provide sufficient learning material for the student to complete in detention; supervising our own detentions not only gives us ownership, but let’s our students know in no uncertain terms that we will always follow through on what we say
• if the school has a detention room, check that the student has attended. If no detention room, look after the student ourselves; do not pass on responsibility at this stage. Next day check that the parents have acknowledged the planner note
• should a fifth offence occur, give a 30-minute detention with the same procedures as above and inform the Year Level Coordinator/Advisor
• should a sixth offence occur or a student behaves in a manner that is a danger to themselves, other students or us, send a trusted student to get a senior staff member, who will exit the student from class (often called a Red Card or Rocket clause)
• a parental interview is now necessary
• for extremely difficult students sometimes it is more prudent to take the rest of the class out of the room and leave the offending student to the senior staff member
• after three detentions, an automatic 45-minute afterschool detention will result
• this ensures that a clear hierarchy of consequences is in place and understood
• before an “exited” student can be re-admitted to class, it is vital that the matter be resolved by the student and teacher, by the student completing a “Return to Class Agreement” (see website for Agreement)
• documenting all incidents and outcomes accurately cannot be over stated
• besides our duty of care, it enables Year Level Coordinators/Advisors to monitor patterns of student behaviour and instigate early intervention strategies

It is vital for all staff to be consistent, caring, follow through and be assertive in the process.

- students will respond very positively to a consistent and agreed approach to classroom functioning

where we are “readable”; the adolescent brain copes well with understood routines.

Raising our voice and zeroing in on one student from the front of the classroom is to be avoided.

- adolescents treasure their image, and may see this as a putdown (which it is), and in most cases will feel bullied by us. It is highly likely that the student in question will respond inappropriately, loudly and defiantly.

- also, the other 20 plus other students don’t need to hear this; we are role modelling bullying.

“What is done to children, they will do to society.” Karl Menninger