How can behaviour be managed constructively in order to facilitate effective teaching and learning? Essay

How can behaviour be managed constructively in order to facilitate effective teaching and learning?

In this essay I am going to identify several principal areas of constructive behaviour management strategies employed in classrooms that I have recently visited. I will focus on class rules and the importance of negotiating them in a teacher/class milieu. I have observed several key approaches to positive behaviour management and will draw upon elements of the school’s ‘Whole School Approach’ to their behaviour policy.

The school that is the main source of information for the purpose of this essay is a Church of England School in Essex. It has approximately 165 children on the register and averages 23 children in each year group. It is in London’s commuter belt , in a rural area and has a very cohesive parent/school relationship. I observed a Year 2 class which, on my arrival, a member of staff described as, “a really great bunch of children. You’re so lucky to get to know this lot.”


Setting out behavioural boundaries at the start of term.
On my first day, after I had been introduced to the children, everyone sat down on chairs in a circle to discuss what everyone felt they thought were fair rules in the classroom. The reason I specify the chairs is that the children had earlier expressed their dislike of sitting for more official discussion on the floor. It seemed appropriate that because what the children were being expected to do was formal, and of group importance, the setting in which it was conducted should also reflect this. One of the boys I observed associated too much sitting on the floor with “like being in Reception”. The children were all on the same eye/body level as the teacher and each other, creating an atmosphere of equality, importance and inclusion.   Clearly, children are much more likely to stick to rules if they feel they are ‘their’ rules they are sticking to. (Robertson, J. 1996).

These findings were validated during a lecture...