Week 18 – Brief thoughts

1. Departmental Meeting

One item on the agenda of this month’s departmental meeting was corridor behaviour among Y10s. Indeed, this year’s cohort of Y10 have a tendency to run and scream and push each other in a disruptive and dangerous way, across all subject areas. Senior management has asked teachers to be in the corridor in between lessons, ready for when pupils arrive; from what I overheard at the teachers’ table, though, teachers see the issue as a school-wide problem that could/should be solved by interventions and reminders of expectations in assemblies.

Two English colleagues commented on the situation in a way that I found perceptive:

• “The school’s culture focuses on [exam] results instead of [building] character; is it any wonder we have these sorts of problems?”
• “The school can’t push responsibility onto department areas for what is essentially about a year group needing to become more conscious about their own behaviour. The power in changing this lies in the students. We need to remind them, in assemblies, about the choices they have to make, and the school policy needs to consistently reflect that.”

 

2. Sending kids to separated learning

Quite early on when I started teaching Y7 they clearly communicated to me that they didn’t believe I was “the kind of teacher” who sent pupils to separated learning. I told them that I had (and indeed, I had sent a pupil from my tutor group the week before). Despite this class being usually incredibly well-behaved, I have noticed them becoming far more off-task and chatty than they used to. And so, following the school’s behaviour policy, I keep track of their warnings on the board, with a brief descriptor of “what they have done”. And in the past two lessons, I have sent 3 pupils to separated learning. The first time I did it, I thought it would serve as a strategic move (so that they would know that the warnings do mean business), but now that 3 pupils have persisted, I think I need a more nuanced approach, because realistically these pupils end up pushing boundaries that I haven’t made firm enough.

Here are some ideas that I want to practise in order to de-escalate situations before such a situation arises:

• technique that’s worked before in other classes (but that I forgot under pressure): keep track of “minutes owed” for disruptive pupils only to stay behind after class
• if a pupil doesn’t shape up after warning number 2, take them out for a quick discussion, reminding them of their power to make constructive choice

What I plan to do next time I see the class is:

• have a look at the “[School] Manners”, which were written by students from past years, and discuss why those rules help a group to learn together
• discuss the difference between choices we make as individuals, and choices we make as part of the group, and why we might choose to act differently (maybe by using examples from situations that are not school-related)
• everyone to write on a post-it (so that they can move the post-it forwards every lesson in their exercise book, and have it at hand) what they commit to choosing. Eg: “Every day, I make [class name] a better group by choosing to… raise my hand / settle down quietly / etc“