SEPT-DEC 2023 ISSUE - Flipbook - Page 36
Paul Featherstone former
primary school teacher
and Product Manager at
ParentPay Group explores
ways to enhance behaviour
management in school.
Encouraging a positive
approach to pupil behaviour
But blame either directed at ourselves
or at others doesn’t get us anywhere.
When behaviour is poor both pupils
and teachers suffer.
The truth of it is a teacher is not an
island. Effective pupil behaviour
management needs teamwork. This
means having the right culture and
processes in place, so teachers feel
supported by their school’s
behaviour management strategy and
not stressed. If it’s too time consuming or
complicated it can leave teachers feeling
overwhelmed and unable to act early
enough to avoid the conflict escalating.
According to Teacher Tapp one of the
worst things a teacher can hear when
managing a pupil’s poor behaviour is
“she isn’t a problem for me in lessons.”
Alone in a classroom it’s perhaps easy
to understand why a teacher might be
left feeling that “what happens in the
classroom is solely as a direct result of
your own skill set.”
And schools don’t operate in a vacuum.
Parents have a key role to play in
supporting positive behaviour in
school. But only hearing from the
school about negative behaviour can
leave pupils and parents feeling ‘got at’
rather than supported and only singled
out when things go wrong and never
when they go right.
So, what can schools do to ensure
teachers have the right toolbox of skills
and strategies to best support them to
improve pupil behaviour?