Addressing Behaviour That Challenges

Mike Blamires

The quality first model

Source: behaviour and attendance national strategies

The Elton Report (1989) Discipline in Schools London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1989

http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/elton/elton00a.html

• From the selected recommendations

• a) Choose two that you consider to be of key importance

• b) choose one that is of least importance

Ignore recommendations less than 4 and remember to turn the page at some point

Harnessing Rewards and Sanctions

The results of the 2012 NFER survey showed that a range of strategies were used by respondents to manage pupil behaviour. Those used most often included praising desired behaviour; having a system to follow through with sanctions; and using a reward system (NFER, 2012,).

Videos: Rewards Sanctions

What rewards and sanctions have you seen or used?

How effective were they?

Were they used selectively and/or consistently?

Is it more important to be consistent or selective?

Trainees talking about their experiences and strategies

Behaviour2Learn.co.uk

Visual Timetables

Visual structure

• I recently read the ‘Checklist Manifesto’ by Atul Gawande, a surgeon who was concerned that so many patients seemed to suffer serious complications in the days after their operation.

• He realised that many of these problems were caused by operating staff failing to follow basic procedures.

• For example, a surgeon failing to wash his hands could cause an infection, or failing to account for all the swabs used in the process could lead to one being left in the patient’s body. Gawande developed a checklist to be read out before each operation to ensure that all of the simple, but essential procedures were followed.

• The outcome was a marked decrease in the number of patients becoming seriously ill or dying after surgery. I took the idea of a checklist and adapted it to help schools to improve behaviour. My list is a menu of ideas from which schools can develop their own checklist.

The checklist in use

• Woodend Park School on their behaviour checklist

• Whitehall Infants on their behaviour checklist

The Steer Report

Steering The Right Course: Primary

Soft skills for hard schoolsAt classroom level:

• the timetable being an inaccurate guide to academic time usage;

• the presence of inconsistency, including some high-quality teaching;

• the possession of low expectations;

• an emphasis on supervision and routines;

• low levels of teacher–pupil interaction about work;

• the pupils perceiving their teachers as not caring, praising, etc.;

• the presence of high noise levels and lots of non-work-related movement;

• the use of negative feedback from teachers.

Which soft skills might you employ to tackle these challenges ..

and how?

Strategy 1:

Clarity of what is expected

Strategy 2:

Predictability / Novelty

Strategy 3:

Feedback (Rewards & Sanctions)

Strategy 4:

Interaction/ group work

Available time for tasks

Strategy 6:

negotiation/conflict (Choice)

Strategy 7:

level of work (Complexity)

Strategy 8:

Modality

Strategy 9:

Language demand

The 9 Key Strategies (?)

Strategy 5:

Can we learn from past lessons?

Adlerian Approaches to behaviour in Classrooms

Adlerian or Individual Psychology

 

was developed by Alfred Alder in 1911 after his split with Freud. Its tenets are optimistic in that people are unique, social decision making beings whose thoughts and actions have a purpose and goals. Each person is part of a social setting with a capacity to decide and choose.

The well adjusted child, Dreikurs, 1972

has a sense of self worth Is willing to share

has a feeling of belonging is honest

has socially acceptable goals puts forth genuine effort

is able to meet the needs of a situation

thinks in terms of “we” rather than “I”

assumes responsibility

is interested in others

respects the rights of others

co-operates with others

encourages others

is courageous

Discipline, the media and political influence

 

It is worth considering the “Individual Psychology” approach to the promotion of discipline as the development of personal responsibility where parents, teachers apply the skills of encouragement, consistency and the use of natural and logical consequences so that the child can “respond correctly to the demands of social life”.

Dinkemeyer and Dreikurs (1963) autocratic methods

 

suggest that “traditional methods of influencing children come from an autocratic past where reward and punishment were the effective means of influencing and stimulating subordinates and promoting conformity to the demands of authorities like parents and teachers”

Dinkemeyer and Dreikurs (1963) on democratic methods

 

suggest a move from autocratic methods to democratic methods of child guidance that encourages choice and responsibility and further suggest that democratic relationships are at the heart of effective behaviour training which is based on encouragement, a respect for order through clear expectations and the experience of natural consequences for misbehaviour, and the avoidance of conflict.

(Driekurs, 1971) cited in Chew P 53 on rewards

 

“Rewards usually are given by someone in a superior role to someone in an inferior position which is not a mutually respectful stance. They are often used as bribes which in the end teaches that nothing worthwhile is given freely. Rewards given by parents often come back to haunt them when children refuse to do anything unless they receive a tangible reward. The focus is removed from internal controls to external one.”

Intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards

 

Extrinsic rewards do play a important role in social organisations including schools where they reinforce whole school policy on behaviour. Chew (1998) asks that “if children are taught that every thing worth doing must be compensated, when are they to learn and feel the value of giving and helping?” (p 53)

On Punishment

 The current guidance refers to sanctions rather than punishment although the need for punishment has an enduring appeal in the media for pupils at risk of exclusion. E.g. Parsons (2003) Chew states that “Venting anger and making children “pay” for their misbehaviour is short sighted, selfish way to handle problem situations. When punished, children learn to go underground with their behaviour, if not choosing to directly challenge the authority figure.” P 53

“Good Discipline”

  “builds within the child the courage to function effectively”, (Dinkmeyer, 1965) using natural and logical consequences which enable the child to see her responsibilities to her family and social group. Encouragement and discouragement are key concepts for Adlerians as they impact of the child’s courage to take responsibility for aspects of their life.

“The courageous person”

“The courageous person can look at a situation, a task or event in terms of possible actions and solutions rather than potential threats or dangers

Therefore he can move without hesitation persist without slackening and proceed without withdrawing” P32

Praise versus encouragement

 This distinction is closely related to natural and logical consequences. Encouragement helps to build the self confidence of the child so that they can handle difficulty.

The aim is to develop internal rather than external motivation by focussing on effort and improvement towards a goal rather than the achievement of the goal per se. From an Adlerian perspective, praise teaches a child to conform,

Natural & Logical Consequences

Natural consequences represent reality for the child with no interference from adults. This would include a child getting cold because they did not put on their coast when they went out to play. Logical consequences are those which follow a violation of a social order or tacit rules for co-operation within society. This could include the child forgetting to take lunch money or losing a fellow pupil’s possession.

Logical Consequences

Logical consequences are concerned with the child locating the choices to be made instead of relying on adults around them to come up with the solutions. Dinkemeyer (1989)However, when adults dominate this issue children rarely learn the power of their own choices. If the “logical” consequence is contrived by the adult and not related to the misbehaviour, then the aims of the adult may become suspect so that power and control are the issue rather than the correction of the problem.

Successful Behaviour

Dreikurs (1971) states that a child must come to understand why he behaves as he does, how this behaviour affects others, how it is “successful” behaviour from the child’s point of view and how appropriate behaviour can gain him more acceptance..

The selection of a logical consequence also depends a great deal upon the goal of the child as well as his method of obtaining it.

Discipline and Dignity (1988), Curwin and Mendler

..suggest that consequences work best in the classroom when they are clear, specific and spelled out ahead of time because predictability is important in helping students choose behaviour.

Fair is not always equal

Chew suggests that having a range of alternative consequences gives the teacher discretion in matching consequences to situations. This may lead to the accusation of being unfair in applying different consequences for the same misbehaviour which Chew addresses with the “Fair is not always equal” This principle does acknowledge that different people have different needs so that fair not equal treatment can be appropriate.

Encouraging Children to Learn 

Dinkmeyer & Driekurs (1976)

A focus on purpose rather than cause.

All behaviour is purposive. Behaviour has a social meaning. Individuals are not merely at the mercy of drives or impulses…

…nor does heredity or environment force a particular direction.

Both are used as a stimulus for personal interpretation (biased apperception) with a regular pattern of response becoming a lifestyle.

The individual’s aim is significance and belonging.

Four Mistaken Goals for Behaviour

1) Attention

2) Power

3) Revenge

4) Inadequacy

• Adler, A. (1930) The Education of the Child

• New York Greenburg Publisher Inc

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• Adler, A. Ed (1930) Guiding the Child: On the Principles of Individual Psychology

• New York Greenburg Publisher Inc

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• Adler, A. (1963) The Problem Child

• New York: Capricorn Books

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• Dinkmeyer, D. & Dreikurs, R. (2000) Encouraging Children to Learn

• New York: Brunner Routledge

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• Dreikurs, R., Casell, P. & Dreikurs-Ferguson, E. (2004) Discipline Without Tears : How To Reduce Conflict And Establish Co-Operation In The Classroom

• New York: Wiley

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• Dreikurs, R., Grunwald, B.B., & Pepper, F.C. (1998) Maintaining Sanity in the Classroom: Classroom Management Techniques 2 nd Edition

• Florence KY: Accelerated Development: Taylor and Francis

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• Logan. P. & Richardson,(2006) Report of the Working Group on Student Behaviour

• London National Education Research Forum (NERF)

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• Rogers. B. (2000) Cracking The Hard Class: Strategies for Managing the Harder than Average Class

• London Paul Chapman Publishing: Sage

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• Rogers. B. (2000) Cracking The Hard Class: Strategies for Managing the Harder than Average Class

• London Paul Chapman Publishing: Sage

•  

• Rogers. B. (2000) Classroom Behaviour

• London Paul Chapman Publishing: Sage

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• Spencer. H (1861) Education

• Paris

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The Eternal Verities of Classroom Behaviour