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Graeme Napier, an ICT teacher in his second year of teaching at an 11-18 comprehensive school in Lancashire, was concerned that whilst he was able to use the school’s structured system of ‘consequences’ to manage poor behaviour effectively, there was little focus given to students who behaved well.
The school’s behaviour policy consisted of a hierarchy of four consequences:
Although the consequences system worked well, Graeme felt that acknowledging positive behaviour was just as important. He found evidence that supported his view in a Research of the Month (RoM) summary about effective strategies for pupils with emotional or behavioural difficulties in mainstream classrooms.
For example, one section noted different kinds of rewards for pupils’ behaviour, such as:
In particular, Case study 5 showed how teachers who were successful at managing their students’ behaviour did so through showing their appreciation and building positive relationships within a context of a whole school rewards and sanctions policy. The study identified how these effective teachers used the same approaches. For example, they:
In general, the effective teachers motivated their students to achieve through giving them praise and formative feedback, and managed their behaviour through establishing a positive relationship with individual students.
Graeme found further evidence of the value of positive feedback and praise in the RoM taster about Consulting pupils about teaching and learning.
According to this research:
These findings caused Graeme to think carefully about what kinds of rewards would be appropriate for students in different year groups. He appreciated that some commendations (such as stickers in planners) are less meaningful to older students, and that other less public commendations (such as a telephone call to their parents) were preferred.
Reading about the research in both RoMs influenced the way that Graeme introduced a new rewards system with his classes, designed to focus attention on positive behaviour. He devised a hierarchy of four kinds of meaningful rewards:
At the same time, Graeme planned to overlook, and tactically ignore some behaviour, such as:
Graeme discussed his ideas with his CPD Manager. His CPD Manager suggested that he should look carefully at his intention to ‘ignore poor behaviour’ – that it was important that he notice all behaviour and that he should focus on how he reacted to the behaviour. Graeme decided that he would do this by choosing to overlook isolated examples of inappropriate behaviour and challenge students to re-focus on their work whilst reminding the students of good behaviour choices.
Graeme was careful to monitor his use of praise in lessons. To help him to do this, he made audio recordings of some of his lessons, then transcribed them so that he could identify opportunities where he used verbal praise effectively. For example:
‘Your work is really good, James, and I noticed that you were helping Danny earlier. If you put your planner on my desk, I’ll make sure you get a commendation’.
'In about ten seconds I’m going to need to speak to everyone, so you will need to save your work, switch off your monitor, and face this way. Let’s do that now please. Save your work, monitors off, and facing this way. Well done, Hannah, Rachel, Josh. Thank you for doing that so quickly. I want to talk to you about how we’re progressing this lesson…'
Student: '...and that is all I need. Why is this school so crap?…'
Graeme: It looks like you’ve made a good start with this work, I can see that you’re about to continue working on your storyboard – is there anything I can help you with?
As well as introducing the system of rewards and praise, Graeme decided to adapt an approach reported in case study 1 of the RoM about effective strategies for pupils with emotional or behavioural difficulties.
In the case study, pupils were trained in self-instruction. Part of the programme involved giving the pupils cue cards to prompt the pupils to behave appropriately, for example, ‘I need to listen’ and ‘Stop shouting out’. Graeme put post it notes with targets on the pupils’ monitors, for example, ‘In this session I want you to finish …’ or ‘Remember to put a hand up to answer a question’. He used it at first with three Year 8 students to remind them to stay in their seats. But he didn’t just pick on the worst behaved students. He made sure that he gave every student in the class relevant ‘post it note targets’ over the course of the term.
To monitor the impact of his new approach, Graeme logged all the commendations, detentions and referrals he gave to students in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 for twenty days before he had changed his practice. He then logged them again for twenty days after he had introduced the new system.
His results showed an overall increase in the number of commendations and a decrease in the number of consequences given. When he asked the students about which kinds of actions they preferred (using a questionnaire), almost twice as many said they preferred commendations to consequences. In particular, they liked to receive certificates with awards and discussing their work with the teacher.
Graeme was pleased with his results and plans to show them to the school’s behaviour management working party as evidence of the value of making greater use of positive feedback.
Graeme found Research of the Month a really useful starting point for his project. Having defined an area to look at, he identified the articles that would provide him with knowledge to support what he was trying to achieve. He then devised a framework for dealing with behaviour, which research indicated would work:
‘Reading the evidence in Research of the Month took the trial and error out of the process. It meant I started closer to the answer. It’s motivating to put the research evidence into practice when encountering something difficult in class’.
Read more about the assessment for learning techniques to support effective learning behaviours from the assessment for learning taster pack (PDF, 35kb).
