Friday 21st October 2011

Justine Drury is Director of Tiger Education and Training and leads the company’s engagements with training providers and further education colleges in the Midlands. She has two decades experience as a secondary school teacher and senior manager, and as Head of School at South Nottingham College where she led the College’s 14-16 provision. Here she talks about the need for intelligent discipline policies and strategies for implementing them, with reference to a recent TES Article.

Positive Discipline really is the way forward.

I read a very interesting article in the TES recently entitled ‘Putting a “Why?” in behaviour’ (Times Educational Supplement, 7th October 2011). The article resonated closely with my approach to behaviour and discipline. Below is the article in its entirety. Afterwards I have drawn comparisons with our own positive discipline training and strategies.

Here is the article:

It’s official: David Cameron and Michael Gove are going to make school discipline a key part of their education drive. The PM announced earlier this month that he is in favour of “tough love”, while Michael Gove promises a far stronger approach to school discipline, including greater ability for teachers to restrain pupils by using physical force, and tighter rules on truancy and disruptive behaviour.

Their comments have produced a shower of abuse. Much of it fails to understand that it is those students with the least suffer from the most ill discipline in schools. 15 years ago. Tony Blair reorientated Labour from a concern primarily for the perpetrators of crime to those who were the victims. We are now witnessing a similar change in thinking on school disciple, with the concern shifting away from those who behave badly towards those who suffer from it. Make no mistake; a sea change is on its way.

The danger is, as we saw with the August riots, that the debate becomes polarised. The left highlights the backgrounds of those who create the problems, while the right resorts all too easily to the “strong arm of the law” as the catch-all solution. What we need is an intelligent approach towards school discipline that fuses the analysis of left and right. For those with little prospect of employment, or who lack a stable home background, there will always be less incentive to behave in a way that we might like. Equally, you cannot avoid individual responsibility. Not all those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds behave poorly at school, while plenty of “toffs” behave appallingly.

So here is my 5-point plan for excellent school discipline:

First ensure that the school rules and values have buy-in from the whole community – teachers, pupils, support staff and parents.

Second communicate the rules and punishments regularly to pupils and parents, so no one can say they did not know about them.

Third, ensure the rules are applied rigorously and fairly by and to all

Fourth, give pupils positions of responsibility, which will breed confidence and character. These should be chosen in a system that is seen to be fair, with pupils voting. Student voice remains all talk for too many schools, which are reluctant to trust their charges with authority over others. In assemblies, it is more effective for pupils to talk about the importance of abiding by the rules and upholding the values and ethos of the school than for teachers to do so.

Fifth, punishment should be intelligent. The experience of far too many is that the punishment they receives makes them angry and does nothing for wanting them to avoid making committing the same offence in the future. Re-offending rates in Sweden, where the criminal justice system is based on restorative justice, are up to 4 times less than in the UK. Punishment in school should educate, not agitate.

Intelligent discipline system in schools, which many currently have, will transform the outlook for us all. But let us remember that the riots were caused in part because the balance had been tilted too far away from the perpetrators to the victims of crime. In schools, we need to give equal weight to thinking about why poor behaviour occurs as to punishing it when it arises. That way, we will have not only better schools but a better society too.

(Article ends)

Tiger Education and Training’s Positive Discipline training provides tried and tested strategies that support the above points. The strategies are positive and focus on prevention, rather than fire fighting and issuing sanctions. Just as the article suggests, it’s about educating young people about how and why they need to behave in a certain way and doing this in a consistent and cooperative manner.

Our Positive Discipline training focuses on 5 main themes:

Prevention – every classroom must have a vision and a plan. By allowing students to become partners in the classroom, less time is wasted on discipline issues. Positive Discipline identifies the important procedures and routines and then models and teaches them so that students and teachers share the same expectations.

Caring – knowing your students is key and incorporating consistent and cooperative classroom management strategies will maximize achievement.

Cooperation – encouraging the sharing of classroom management with students and creating and adhering to a set of rights or Magna Carta, as we like to call it.

Organisation – student manager roles, such as a Cover Teacher Manager help organise the learning environment and distribute leadership and responsibility in the classroom.

Community – good news is consistently shared and the positives reinforced and rewarded

I’d really like to hear your thoughts about positive behaviour management via our facebook page or twitter and also any strategies that have worked for you in the classroom.

You can get in touch with Justine today on 020 7903 5028.

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