Tackling classroom behaviour

How to build a positive learning environment

Struggling with classroom behaviour? This page brings together expert advice from behaviour specialists to help you manage behaviour with confidence and compassion. Whether you're dealing with disruptive students, trying to stay calm under pressure, or looking for ways to foster better relationships in your classroom, these free resources offer practical strategies you can use right away. 

Ask world-renowned expert, Bill Rogers

To punish or not to punish? Do I have the right to be angry? How can I create a positive learning environment? What can I do if the class is completely out of control? Wonder no more: Bill Rogers is here to help.

Bill Rogers' advice on Behaviour

"Miss, you are not my mum!"

Your relationship with your students can play a key part in how they behave. This chapter from Adele Bates' Miss, I Don't Give a Sh*t will help you to understand why a positive relationship is important and how you can create one.

READ: BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH PUPILS

Better behaviour for all

As a teacher, you can completely change the mood of the classroom with your behaviour. It can be difficult to stay mindful about how you're acting and reacting, so below are some top tips on how to ensure you're motivating your students to feel positive.

How to Improve Your Behaviour:

• Your first task in any situation is to ensure that your behaviour does not escalate the situation.
• Treating every day as a fresh start is not simply a cliché. It is vital that our relationships withstand the bad times.
• Some children experience, and indeed expect, failure and rejection regularly. Our behaviour can show them that we are safe people to be around and that we want them to be successful.
• When children sabotage situations to avoid failure or challenge, our behaviour can show them that they are welcomed back unconditionally.
• It is important to recognise in yourself the times when your capacity to cope with poor behaviour is compromised.
• Courtesy is contagious – modelling the behaviour we want from our children is essential.
• Your voice is immensely powerful. Talk to the children as if their parents were sitting next to them.
• Sometimes our behaviours as adults indicate a desire to win, and that means that a child has to lose.

*This is an adapted extract of Jarlath O'Brien's Better Behaviour.

The relationship between behaviour and mental health

It is estimated that one in eight children has a diagnosable mental health condition, but how does that impact their behaviour at school and, most importantly, how can you support them? This chapter will help you feel confident when managing children's mental health and wellbeing.

Schools can mitigate children’s mental health issues by incorporating whole school approaches into the curriculum (e.g. mindfulness, nurture groups, buddy and peer mentoring systems). Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Problems often begin in response to external factors surrounding the child, rather than originating within the child.
• Acting out and unwanted behaviours can be a coping mechanism and a way of hiding the hurt. Behaviour changes are a clue that something may not be quite right, and you should look into it.
• Very often at school, problems can be mitigated and outcomes improved with early help (when available)
• Look beyond the behaviour to what may be driving it.
• Change language to consider what has happened instead of what is wrong, and feel the difference. Focusing on negative aspects through punishment is often counterproductive. 
• Ideally, schools and health should be working together to improve children’s mental health and well-being, both with individual cases and from a whole school approach.

*This is an adapted extract from Children’s Mental Health and Emotional Well-being in Primary Schools by Howard et al.

For more wellbeing support for you and your pupils, check out our Teacher's Self-Care Collection of chapters.

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