A lot is written and said about behaviour. For good reason. The recent survey and analysis by TeacherTapp for the BBC highlighted how important it is to get right – with way too many teachers reporting significant challenges and bad experiences.
My perspective on this is informed by time (decades) in the classroom where I was generally successful but had a lot to learn. It’s also informed by the process of coaching others.
My perspective is also informed by having the experience of trying to get on top of behaviour at a leadership level in my last school – and not succeeding. It’s not a stretch to say that failing to get on top of leading behaviour is the underlying reason why it was my last school! I tried incredibly hard; the circumstances would have challenged anyone and we were succeeding in numerous areas – but, still, it wasn’t enough. So, that’s my starting point on this: I don’t come to it projecting authority based on my great deeds; I come to it rather battered and humbled by the experience of failing. Now enough time has passed so that no students from my time are still there – and it’s essentially a different place, with many great people working there – I feel I can discuss some of the issues again.
As ever, success vs failure is obviously too stark. It’s not binary. Despite everything, I think, after a turbulent period in the school’s life, we did make a big difference and improved behaviour and learning in multiple ways.
