Behaviour management – how to make sure your teacher training has impact

by Sam Strickland

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The who, what, where, when and why of training teachers is often a topic of staffroom conversation. It comes up at the start of each academic year as schools inevitably commence afresh with an INSET day.

The National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) have, rightly, recognised the need to offer a behaviour pathway for colleagues who are seriously considering (or are already performing) a pastoral role within a school.

However, there is still a lot more that can be done. Behaviour training can frequently be treated as a bolt-on, assumed or even forgotten.

When the training does occur, it can be stale, too theoretical and once delivered, assume that staff know what they are doing without further input. 

Behaviour CPD

All too often teacher professional development has focused on the end product, as opposed to the foundations and bedrocks that allow teachers to do their jobs.

Training has focused predominantly on pedagogy, activities, and attempting to measure progress. But these are all false proxies for learning.

In more recent times, training has often honed in too rigidly to a select lens of research. I applaud the system-wide shift to consider curriculum, the quality of education and expert subject knowledge, but I do think that there is a health warning to be had here.

There has to be a timely reminder that we are working with people. To err is human.  

Another key challenge is when teachers should receive explicit behaviour training. Often, approaches are assumed: ‘Teachers can handle it,’ or ‘Children will behave if told “you need to behave!”’.

But is this really the case?

For many professionals, their most notable behaviour training session was a one-hour workshop as a trainee teacher, focusing on the use of their voice, keeping their palms down to pacify a situation, and raising an eyebrow in displeasure.

This, on top of the fact that many teachers cite pupil behaviour and discipline as one of the main demotivating factors that they experience at work (as per the DfE’s ‘Pupil behaviour in schools in England’ report), and that there has been insufficient training put in place to manage it, compounds the issue. 

A dangerous red herring, which has been pushed on numerous historic NPQs, is that good planning will lead to good behaviour.

It might in some cases, but it won’t in all. If the social norm in a school or a classroom is to misbehave, then even the most meticulously planned lesson will fall apart. 

So, what can be done? 

The role of leaders

Leaders should serve as the vanguards of their staffing body. They are integral and critical to shaping their staff’s professional worth, expertise and development.

The crucial role that leaders play will set the tone, tenor, rhythm and heartbeat of the school. Whatever leaders prioritise becomes THE priority.

If SLT neglects to train staff in behaviour – and to come back to it time and again – then it won’t be at the top of the list for anyone. 

Behaviour research

Expert teachers can help children learn up to four times faster, and ultimately, nothing can substitute for that.

But teacher development is hard and takes time.

The Sutton Trust reinforces this view, citing the paramount importance of expertise, which includes subject knowledge as well as human and social capital.  

But there needs to be a focus on the mechanism when it comes to teacher training, too. Namely, quality-first teaching: what goes on in the classroom, which is where the magic ultimately happens.

There is also a need to make these approaches a habitual norm for the teacher so that they themselves do not suffer from cognitive overload.

With any training it is important to consider the starting point of any given colleague, to carefully consider their needs and the context within which they are operating.  

Behaviour management ideas

As a profession, we need to be clear and honest that there is no secret silver bullet when it comes to challenging behaviour. But what we can do – and I strongly believe that senior leaders have a professional and moral duty to provide this – is to support staff with timely, consistent and regular behaviour training. This needs to be more than a one-hour workshop in September. It is worth considering: 

Staff briefings/meetings 
What do these actually look like? Could they be converted into mini, regular training sessions for staff to focus on key elements of behavioural training and support? 

Subject teams 
How much time is given to year group teams or subject teams, to consider carefully crafted approaches to teaching and learning that will promote and inspire children to learn and to behave? 

Inset days 
While we need to avoid the one-off workshop approach, I would urge colleagues to have some element of behaviour / culture training built into INSET days, for example. 

Working with colleagues 
We don’t want to compare ourselves to our fellow colleagues. However, watching other professionals (provided there is an explicitly clear focus) can actually help us to develop and to consider ideas. 

Targeted coaching 
Some staff need, want and welcome having a professional and supportive coach who will assist them to consider their own classroom delivery. Ask around your school to see to whom this might apply.  

Assemblies and other public opportunities 
As much as assemblies are about conveying messages to the children, they are also an opportunity to remind and retrain staff. Every single time you have a public forum is an opportunity to train children and staff in what your culture is all about. 

Pathway models of training 
Carefully consider your staffing body. What support is in place for ECTs, those aspiring to be middle or senior leaders, more experienced teachers, etc.? The needs of your staff may vary and you need to consider bespoke approaches to support each and every one of them.  

Further reading

If you’re interested in reading more about the research behind effective behaviour management, the following are worth consulting: 

• The EEF research-informed behaviour interventions 
• Creating a culture: How school leaders can optimise behaviour (tinyurl.com/tp-Culture) 
• Tom Sherrington’s blog on Everyday Routines (tinyurl.com/tp-Routines) 
• HMCI commentary: managing behaviour research (tinyurl.com/tp-Commentary) 
• Behaviour Hubs Portal (tinyurl.com/tp-BehaviourHubs) 

Before planning training, ask yourself:

• Is teaching technically difficult, or technically quite simple (but tiring)? 
• Do you value long periods of training or does teaching require a more limited intellectual ability? 
• Does good teaching come over time, with continuous incremental improvements, or is it something that through hard work and determination can be mastered quite quickly? 
• Should you allow teachers to use sound professional judgement that is informed by evidence and experience, or is it better to drive staff with hard performance targets? 
• Does good teaching come from a collective approach or is it purely down to working as an island? 
• Is in-depth subject knowledge key, or should teachers be trained in an array of pedagogical approaches that help facilitate learning? 

Sam Strickland is a principal at an all-through school in Northampton. Follow Sam on Twitter @Strickomaster