Mentor materials
Establishing consistently high behavioural expectations
Intended outcomes
The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:
Learn that:
- Setting clear expectations can help communicate shared values that improve classroom and school culture
- Establishing and reinforcing routines, including through positive reinforcement, can help create an effective learning environment
Learn how to demonstrate consistently high behavioural expectations, by:
- Teaching and rigorously maintaining clear behavioural expectations (e.g. for contributions, volume level and concentration)
Learn how to build trusting relationships, by:
- Responding consistently to pupil behaviour
Activities
Reflecting on learning (10 minutes)
In the previous topic the ECT planned and scripted a routine. Ask the ECT:
- Did teaching the routine go well?
- What went well in particular?
- What other routines could you apply the principles to?
- What did not go so well?
- What would you improve or adapt for next time/other routines?
Demonstrating high expectations of behaviour (20 minutes)
Pose the question: How can you use positive reinforcement to demonstrate high expectations for behaviour?
Answers might include:
- Narrate the positive things you see happening to show that is what you want to see
- Praise pupils who are doing the right thing
- Keeps the environment positive
- Encourage pupils to do the right thing.
Maintaining high behavioural expectations (20 minutes)
Use each of these scenarios in turn to identify how the school/department behaviour policy expects teachers to respond:
- A pupil is persistently talking.
- A pupil is refusing to remove their coat. -A pupil has their phone out
Discuss the actions that should be taken in these scenarios, based on the policy.
However, all teachers find themselves challenged to know what to say in these situations, and so this activity is an opportunity to practise what to say and not say. The ECT should think of three things that they find themselves saying, which may be unhelpful in behaviour management. Mentors may need to prompt with some examples of their own. For example, using negative statements:
- Don’t be rude
- Stop talking
- You shouldn’t be doing that.
Together, turn these into positive statements, which clearly state the expectations of how pupils should behave, telling the pupil what they should be doing rather than what they shouldn’t.
For example: “You shouldn’t be doing that” could become “I’d like to see you picking your pen up and getting started with the task”; “don’t be rude” could become “in this school we speak to each other with respect and kindness”; “stop talking” could become “everyone is quiet now and listening”.
Discuss the impact this could have on the class and on the ECT’s ability to manage the learning environment.
Planning for action
Work together to draft the ECT’s top five behavioural expectations. Pose the questions:
- How do you want your classroom to feel as a learning environment?
- What will you say to pupils to help them learn this?
When the ECT has decided on their top five expectations, agree:
- How they will communicate them
- How they will practise them
- How they will reinforce them.
In addition, agree who they will observe with a focus on ‘Establishing a supportive and inclusive environment – giving pupils clear instructions’.