Some thoughts

It does sometimes help to be inspired by theories and researches on managing pupils' behaviour. However, for effective behaviour management it is important to analyse why pupils behave the way they do in a school and to develop the strategies that are most appropriate for that school. For example, one needs to investigate what influences pupils' attitudes and behaviour - school ethos, uninspired teaching, conventional or less relevant curriculum, attention-seeking pupils, pupils testing out the teacher, class arrogance (can happen even in primary schools), pupils weak in learning skills and hence get bored easily, EBD situation and so on?

And then to consider that:

• managing and improving behaviour need to be a whole school issue e.g. tackling the factors that influence pupils' inappropriate response
• managing behaviour in lessons needs to be located within the teaching practices
• where PTR is high and number of EBD children is significant, the SMT and governors need to provide adequate number of well skilled LSAs + imaginative deployment of the assistants by the teacher
• where PTR is low and there are few EBD children, pupils with disruptive tendencies could be engaged by providing differentiated and interesting tasks that perhaps have less application of pen&paper (e.g. copying, colouring)
• question-answer is frequently used to challenge thinking and check learning
• suggestions are invited from pupils on how to improve behaviour and discipline or for that matter, their school.

Behaviour management