BEHAVIOUR


Tom Bennett is the Department for Education’s ‘behaviour tsar’ and advises on behaviour policy. Tom’s book, The Behaviour Guru, has been given to all new members of the National Union of Teachers for the past four years. In 2015 he was long-listed as one of the world’s top teachers in the GEMS Global Teacher Prize, and in the same year made the Hufington Post’s ‘Top Ten Global Bloggers’ list. His TES online resources have been viewed over 1,200,000 times. In his spare time he writes about education, and runs researchED, which he founded in 2013. The Education and Training Foundation supported the recent researchED FE conference.


Good behaviour, better learning: classroom management is key


From primary school to further education and training, research teaches us that when it comes to successful behaviour management in education, some things are eternal, writes behaviour guru Tom Bennett.


The Holy Grail of good teaching is to get students thinking about the content, and the good teacher or trainer will have a range of pedagogies to make this happen. But unless students are calm, cooperative and focused on the task we set, that isn’t going to happen. Teachers in further education and


training often feel they have a harder time in some ways than their secondary counterparts – opportunities to sanction are often fewer, and sanctions available are harder to enforce due to the maturity and complexity of the student body in terms of age, expectations and buy-in. But behaviour research reveals that good practice in FE and training settings often mirrors good practice in a pupil referral unit, secondary school or even a primary. The differences emerge in the


details and specifics of the strategies employed. But the FE teacher should be reassured that their dificulties are shared by their colleagues in other sectors, along with the core, global strategies that support student learning behaviour.


KEY TECHNIQUES When we discuss research in behaviour management, we encounter even more of the disputes and pitfalls about veracity, replicability, and portability of conclusion that we commonly encounter in all education debates. But there have been many important


studies in this field, and with care it is possible to discern some common threads about what could be considered effective strategies. These themes broadly and repeatedly


correlate to the experience of the work of the Initial Teacher Training Behaviour


8 SPRING 2017 • INTUITION RESEARCH


Working Group, which I headed in 2015-2016, and the work of my subsequent report for the Department for Education (DfE) on leadership and behaviour cultures, as well as my own educational practice. Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1993) analysed 86 chapters from annual research reviews, 44 handbook chapters, 20 government and commissioned reports, and 11 journal articles to produce a list of 228 variables affecting student achievement. They combined the results with the findings from 134 separate meta-analyses. Of all the variables, classroom management had the largest effect on student achievement. The key to effective behaviour, as


many studies and teachers will testify, is the quality of the relationship between the student and the teacher. This, after all, is what every part of behaviour management aims towards. Every act of sanction, praise, direction or understanding is designed to support that common goal: how successfully does the learner attend to (or otherwise) the instructions and activities set by the teacher? Robert Marzano, (Marzano, 2003b), determined that this factor was the most important determinant of successful learning-focused behaviour. Here I will summarise four of the most commonly referenced behaviour strategies, and give examples of how they translate into the FE experience.


1 REWARDS AND SANCTIONS These are, perhaps, the best-known tools in a teacher’s belt. Yet they are often misunderstood. Some feel sanctions to be punitive and unnecessary. But they are only excessive when excessively used, or


References and reading • Marzano, R. J. (2003a). What works in schools. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.


• Marzano, R. J. (with Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J.). (2003b). Classroom management that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.


• Marzano, R. J. & Marzano J.S. (2003) Educational Leadership, The Key to Classroom Management| Volume 61 | Number 1 Building Classroom Relationships Pages 6-13


• Stage, S. A., & Quiroz, D. R. (1997). A meta-analysis of interventions to decrease disruptive classroom behavior in public education settings. School Psychology Review, 26(3), 333–368.


• Wang, M. C., Haertel, G. D., & Walberg, H. J. (1993). Toward a knowledge base for school learning. Review of Educational Research, 63(3), 249–294.


• Read Developing behaviour management content for initial teacher training (ITT), the report of ITT Behaviour Working Group, chaired by Tom Bennett here goo.gl/qoLts5


used exclusively. As part of a broader range of behaviour approaches, they are essential, as are rewards. Stage and Quiroz’s meta-analysis


(1997) highlights the need for there to be a balance between both ends of the consequence spectrum. Students should be praised


proportionately, frequently and with sincerity. This reinforces the social norms you want to convey in the classroom. But beware: excessive praise devalues it as a commodity, as with sanctions. Sanctions need not be formal, although if your college or company has a formal sanction policy, then use it to the letter. Informal sanctions, reprimands, serious chats, and meetings with senior staff, can all be useful tools to modify misbehaviour.


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