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Behaviour in class is something that most teachers need to take charge of at some time or another.  Attending training for behaviour management is always an important part of the development of practical skills, but isn't always convenient during a busy working week.

We provide online behaviour management training in several formats (including this one which is hosted on Teachable), and one of our regular offers includes access to free webinars.

Here's one of our bite-sized (30 minutes) behaviour management webinars which you're invited to watch.

This 30 minute webinar covers the following common classroom behaviour 'complaints':

• work avoidance (failing to start)
• calling out
• managing lateness
• angry outbursts

Grab your headphones and pick up a few tips and strategies.  You can watch directly on You Tube if your system works better that way.

Behaviour in class - managing lateness

Teaching in the Further Education (16+) arena often means adapting some management of behaviour  in class to be more ‘equal’ (ie adult to adult).

So as a newbie teacher some decades ago, when it was recommended to me that I stand at the door to greet my students I ignored this advice, believing that it was something that should be kept for the young ‘uns.  I preferred to busy myself in class while my students arrived.

But for many of my students, the initial euphoria of college life wore off, and the arrival on time became less important for some of them.  My diligence in dealing with those who preferred to linger in the corridor or dawdle to class was non-existent.  I was faced with poor punctuality and very few ideas about how to deal with it except to complain, berate, or discipline.

One day I happened...

A number of our training courses take shape in the form of a webinar or video.

Why is that?

From both anecdotal evidence and scientific research we know that, during training, information is more easily absorbed with dual coding. Put simply, dual coding means that your brain can store more information in more areas of your brain. (See this video for a great explanation).

“While traditional training tools such as lectures, documents, and PowerPoint presentations may appear to be effective at getting information across, comprehension tests show that much of that information is quickly forgotten. In contrast, video is a visually stimulating medium that boosts training content by upping viewer engagement and improving the learner’s ability to comprehend concepts and details and remember them longer...”

(http://www.vidversity.com/6-reasons-we-focus-on-video-for-learning/)

We also know that after a long day in the training room or classroom,...

Behaviour Management? In her book Getting the Buggers to Behave , Sue Cowley (www.suecowley.co.uk)  talks about many aspects leading to student misbehaviour.  She describes the ‘Cardinal Sins’, unintentionally shown towards students, by some teachers.  Possibly ALL teachers at some time or another (after all, you’re only human) .....

• Winding them up
• Being vague or uncertain
• Being rude
• Overreacting
• Being confrontational
• Being bad tempered
• Being negative
• Being boring

It’s easy to say that the golden rule is to be consistent, but there are days when the behaviour of your students might be getting the better of you, and you fall into the trap of behaving in a way which is incongruent with the behaviour you’d like to see.

This is especially true of life in secondary school and FE, where students will test you while they travel the bumpy...

ADHD and learning

The recent publicity around the blanket ban on fidget cubes and spinners to help in class at some schools has caused me to send a silent wave of sympathy to anyone who knows a learner with ADHD. Or in fact any young person who is fabulously wriggly for no particular reason in every given environment (but particularly the classroom).

The fidget cubes and spinners were designed to enable an outlet for restlessness (or boredom) which is often a side effect of ADHD. But the resultant ‘craze’ of these amongst school children, and subsequent ban, has been rather detrimental to those 6% of pupils who could really benefit from using them.

In January 2017 I wrote a blog An ADHD Agony – Fidgeting in Class which gave a short scenario of a real-life pupil who needs to fidget.

Research...