In the flash of an eye I am now officially two weeks into the teaching year. What's even more surprising about it is that I actually don't feel stressed. Sure enough I have been busy with a multitude of different tasks, but I feel good. I think that before I started
I had succumbed to the fact that I would probably become balder and greyer (I was hoping more for the latter than the former) from stress.
It would be fair to say that I have been blessed with a great class. I have 24 students who are all completely different to one another yet, just fit well. Behaviour management, thankfully, hasn't been the nightmare I was dreading.
I guess for the benefit of all future teachers I will talk about what has been working well for me so far in relation to behaviour management in this post and I will dedicate my next one to the types of assessment I have been using and what has/ has not worked well for me.
Secondly, I have been using "hands on top" to which the students stop everything and repeat "that means stop". I will also randomly start moving my hands until the students notice and start mimicking. I have fun with this one by putting my hands on my head, shoulders, nose, eyes, etc but say the wrong body part to trick them. E.g. "Hands on head" (to which I put my hands on my knees). It confuses them so much they laugh. I guess it's a good way to show them I have a sense of humour.
I have been using a peg system similar to this. I ask the students to move
their peg themselves so that they can be more mindful of the types of behaviours they are exhibiting. This has helped me with students that occasionally disobey instructions as they do not like the attention it brings to have their peg moved down. In fact, I have only had two students move their peg down and they quickly turned their behaviour around and were able to move the pegs back up.
It was important for me to let my students assign their own seating arrangements at the start. This allowed me time to observe who they worked well with and who they were easily distracted by. I have since moved students around and am now much happier with how they are working. My next step is to carry this arrangement forward to when they are sitting as a group on the floor and when they are walking in lines. It seems harsh to separate them when walking through the school, but it is really frustrating when a noisy class walks passed your room while you are trying to do quiet work. It's just my way of respecting other teachers and the work they are doing.
I tend to forget how much is involved in managing the behaviour of a classroom until I start to write things down. Only then do I realise that this really only scratches the surface. The best advice I could give to any future teachers is to really take note of every single strategy you see when on placements. Some will work for you and some won't. It's the subtle ones that you will use the most, so be observant and write down what you see. I am very lucky that I have had some great associate teachers' to learn from.
Hopefully you have taken something from this and if you have (and I guess, if you haven't), leave me a comment. If you have some better strategies then let me know because I would love to give them a go. It's all in the name of sharing so that we can all become great teachers.
I had succumbed to the fact that I would probably become balder and greyer (I was hoping more for the latter than the former) from stress.
It would be fair to say that I have been blessed with a great class. I have 24 students who are all completely different to one another yet, just fit well. Behaviour management, thankfully, hasn't been the nightmare I was dreading.
I guess for the benefit of all future teachers I will talk about what has been working well for me so far in relation to behaviour management in this post and I will dedicate my next one to the types of assessment I have been using and what has/ has not worked well for me.
Behaviour Management
I wouldn't be a teacher if I hadn't established some sort of cue for order. There is the usual clapping of hands, holding one hand in the air and counting to 10, but I have also introduced a couple of chants that I learned off other teachers. First one is "1, 2, 3 eyes on me" to which the students know to stop and repeat "1, 2 eyes on you".Secondly, I have been using "hands on top" to which the students stop everything and repeat "that means stop". I will also randomly start moving my hands until the students notice and start mimicking. I have fun with this one by putting my hands on my head, shoulders, nose, eyes, etc but say the wrong body part to trick them. E.g. "Hands on head" (to which I put my hands on my knees). It confuses them so much they laugh. I guess it's a good way to show them I have a sense of humour.
I have been using a peg system similar to this. I ask the students to move
 |
| The peg system similar to what I am using. |
It was important for me to let my students assign their own seating arrangements at the start. This allowed me time to observe who they worked well with and who they were easily distracted by. I have since moved students around and am now much happier with how they are working. My next step is to carry this arrangement forward to when they are sitting as a group on the floor and when they are walking in lines. It seems harsh to separate them when walking through the school, but it is really frustrating when a noisy class walks passed your room while you are trying to do quiet work. It's just my way of respecting other teachers and the work they are doing.
I tend to forget how much is involved in managing the behaviour of a classroom until I start to write things down. Only then do I realise that this really only scratches the surface. The best advice I could give to any future teachers is to really take note of every single strategy you see when on placements. Some will work for you and some won't. It's the subtle ones that you will use the most, so be observant and write down what you see. I am very lucky that I have had some great associate teachers' to learn from.
Hopefully you have taken something from this and if you have (and I guess, if you haven't), leave me a comment. If you have some better strategies then let me know because I would love to give them a go. It's all in the name of sharing so that we can all become great teachers.
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