What does this mean?
Teachers model and reinforce high expectations with regard to positive and respectful interactions, while behaviours that undermine this are challenged with a range of clear and consistent strategies built around the school’s rewards and sanctions policy.
These things, blended with a warmth, kindness and an appreciation for each student as an individual, help secure positive behaviour for learning.
What might this look like in practice?
Students are greeted with warmth (regardless of what might have happened last lesson/ last week/ etc!)
Students are spoken to by name and recognised as individuals
Praise (verbal, good comments etc) is used to highlight and reinforce positive behaviours
'Positive Framing' is used to maintain a calm, positive climate even when challenging negative behaviours. For example...
"Stop talking!" becomes "I expect you to be listening"
"Stop fiddling with your pen!" becomes "I expect you to put everything down while I'm talking"
Choices and Consequences are used to ensure students are clear about expectations. For example...
"I expect you to be tracking me while I'm talking. If I have to stop and wait for you again, I'll have to give you a bad comment"
"I expect you to be listening while others are contributing to the lesson. If I have to ask you again, I'll have to ask you to move seats"
"That is now the third time I've had to speak to you about, so that is now a bad comment. If I have to speak to you again, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave"
Interaction between students are subject to the same high expectations as interactions between students and staff. For example...
"You would never hear me to tell you to 'shut up', so I don't expect you to talk to each other that way when you're in my classroom"
Starting Strong - Positive BM.pdfStarting Strong
See these slides from our start of year training on positive behaviour management for a reminder of other positive behaviour management strategies...
What other resources are worth looking at?
Resources from a 15 minute forum on Testing your Mettle, HERE
Resources from a 15 Minute forum on Positive Framing HERE
A great blog post from CF that provided the basis for a thought-provoking 15 Minute Forum HERE
A great 'top ten tips' from Tom Sherrington is worth a look - HERE
Another 'top ten tips', this one from Alex Quigley - HERE
A great blog post on 'the warm/strict conundrum' - HERE
Who has been working on this at Richard Challoner?
Inquiry Questions/ Themes from the Learning Communities...
NM - The power of effective routines in lessons with clear and consistent structures (2019-20)
NCA - Low-level intervention as a tool to reduce interruption (2019-20)
AAR - Using positive language to improve student attitudes to learning (2018-19)
AN/RC - Using positive language and modifying expectations to improve engagement (2017-18)