How to Support Students with Challenging Behaviour – 5 Tips for Teachers
Trying to keep calm when things are not going well in the classroom can be such a struggle. It is overwhelming to try and support students with their emotions and behaviours – as well as our own.
Susan Gavin, course author of EPV Summer Course “Supporting Students with Challenging Behaviour” has put a comprehensive course together to help us pre-empt issues and creating systems and ways of working that stop things escalating negatively. We have shared some of these below.
Here are 5 tips on how to support students with challenging behaviour:
1. Have clear rules and procedures in the classroom
This ensures that there is consistency and structure that supports everyone. Here are some pointers for making rules with students.
- Involve the children
- Keep the rules to 5 or 6
- Use positive language
- Model the rules
2. Draw on pupils’ interests
When planning a lesson, think about how to include childrens’ interests and present it in an engaging way. Providing lessons that aspire to promote intrinsic motivation can help to deter a teacher from overusing rewards systems and becoming reliant on them as the sole means of motivating children.
3. Use of different methodologies
Try and avoid relying on the same activities during every lesson, as the children becoming overfamiliar with them and may become less engaged.
For example, when using the KISS, 4 Phase Lesson Plan – there are 4 parts to a lesson which allows the teacher to plan 4 learning activities. It’s easy to follow and ensures that there can be different methodologies in each section, for example independent work and then group work or teacher-led questioning. By following a structure but mixing up the methodologies it helps with good learning ‘flow’ and scaffolding of learning.
You can learn more about the 4 phase lesson plan on our EPV Summer Course “Effective Lesson Planning”.
4. Differentiation
Work within a child’s ability, and ensure you are differentiating for all the children in the class. If an activity is too easy the children will lose motivation, but also if it is too hard it is unattainable to the child! Try and find the right level of challenge so that they feel a sense of achievement. We share more on this, including how to support students with EAL on our EPV Summer Course “Differentiation”.
Psst… Read “How to Differentiate Effectively – 10 Tips for Teachers” HERE!
5. Promote Inquiry, Play & Discovery
Thompson (2013) suggests a number of techniques that can be used in the classroom to promote positive performance and behaviour. These are centred around teaching creatively and also encourage creativity among the children themselves.
These may include:
- Asking the children to master a topic so they can create a quiz or worksheet for their classmates.
- Watching short videos as a means of learning.
- Writing on anything other than lined paper.
- Listening to music that matches the content being taught.
- Working against a clock.
- Making a video or audio recording.
- Role-playing.
- Competing against another class.
Virtual Conference for Teachers: NQT Picnic 27th July 2022
NQT Picnic is a specially designed online event for NQT’s in July 2022.
It is a daunting experience starting your very first teaching position – whether it is subbing or your own post! College seems like a long time ago now and you may be starting to feel a tad nervous.
Following the huge success of NQT Fest & Picnic in 2021, we are delighted to share this special event for NQT’s in July 2022 with you!
Free Resources for Teachers: End of School Year Activities
Free Resource for Teachers – End of School Year Activities!
11 Ideas for End of Year School Activities
What an exciting time of the year! Your main lessons and topics are complete and the pupils are getting excited for their summer holidays. It can be a challenging time to keep pupils engaged in classroom lessons due to exciting events on the horizon like school tours or sports days, so I like to keep things light and fun and still try to ensure the learning is taking place.
3 Things Teachers Should Know Before They Start Teaching
Ciara McGuane is the Summer Course Director for Rahoo.ie.
Her career highlights include being filmed by BBC London teaching in the classroom and guest-lecturing at the Institute of Education in London. She has worked as a teacher, school leader, teacher trainer and initial teacher training tutor prior to setting up Rahoo.
3 Classroom Management Mistakes to Avoid
This is always a hot topic for teachers and so important to get it right.
Here are some mistakes that teachers have shared with us when they did our EPV Summer Course on Classroom Management with Niamh Byrne, Irish Primary Teacher.
We have dipped in and out of the CPD course to learn what to do instead!
The Secret to Successful Lesson Planning!
Why do we remember the words of lyrics we haven’t heard in years? Why do some experiences stick in our heads more than others? Something made them memorable!
Make your lessons stick by trying to make some aspect of it different. This could be as simple as playing music (we have played classical music when students were working independently in the past) or hooking them into the lesson with mystery tasks or controversial questions that spark debate.
When planning ask yourself: What can I do to make this lesson memorable?
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