Classroom Management: Individual Or Whole School

 

The cultures within schools vary widely; some have a Whole School Approach to Student Management, while others leave it up to the individual teacher. Whatever the case may be in our schools, it is essential that we as teachers are:

- “readable” for our students; we are the professionals, not our students, and as such we are the ones who should be doing the adapting

- prepared to establish a set of class generated expectations and agreements with our students

- create a set of rewards for good behaviour and a set of consequences for not meeting behaviorall and learning expectations

- consistent and role model the desire to learn

A Whole School Approach is more desirable because there is a sense of “us” for both students and teachers with a clear set of classroom expectations/agreements in all classes:

- there is less teacher variation for our students to adapt to

- it supports all teachers by having a scaffold to operate within

Leaving it up to individual teachers to create their own classroom management approach

- adds significant pressure for them to be consistent with colleagues and for their students

- makes it very difficult for students to adapt for differing teacher’s expectations and styles

- low level student misbehaviour is often due to their frustration with our inconsistency

How do we establish a set of expectations/agreements within our school?

- firstly, we need to brainstorm as whole staff desirable positive behaviours, both in and outside the classroom; an effective strategy is to use a “Think, Pair, Share” to ensure and value all staff’s input. A positive group of behaviours to seed and initiate discussion could be:

- learning of yourself and others

- movement within the class

- safety of yourself and others

- treatment of others and property

- communication verbally and through body language

- conflict resolution of disagreements without aggression

Before any class discussion takes place it is essential to practise with a colleague/s

- how to put “negotiate” into the process

- how to empower feelings of student ownership

- how we express non-negotiable expectations

- how we work towards consensus agreements

- none of us means to get it wrong, but talking about our core business will reduce this occurring

Preliminary work should be done on:

- scripts for issuing rewards

- practising positive comments; our students meet expectations most of the time

- reward systems that could work well to enhance learning

- scripts for starting and ending classes

- consequences for not meeting expectations and breaking agreements

- scripts for issuing warnings, detention, exiting

“It does not take much strength to do things,

but it requires great strength to decide on what to do” Elbert Hubbard