I strongly believe that confidence in effective behaviour management is paramount to successful teaching. Classrooms with a positive tone, clear boundaries and established expectations are most conducive to learning. A teacher who can manage student behaviour is far more positive, confident and engaging towards students.
The foundation of effective behaviour management is believing that any student can achieve any outcome. To quote Leo Busgalia ‘Our belief about what is possible controls the outcome we get’. Children can tell if their teacher doesn’t like them and aren’t not expecting them to succeed. So, it’s important to communicate to your students that you like them and want them to succeed.
I recently attended a professional development seminar by Phil Beadle on behaviour management. I was once again reminded that behaviour management is an art form that can be mastered by unlocking some simple systems and strategies. So here are 10 de-escalation techniques to manage confrontational or negative student behaviour.
1. Model the behaviour you want the other child to adopt
Sometimes students genuinely don’t know how to behave. Furthermore, teachers often communicate different expectations. Consequently the solution is to model exactly what behaviour you expect.
2. Change the activity or location
When the first signs of confrontation and arousal appear, a clever teacher will rapidly change the activity or the requirement of the student. For example ask them to do a job for you, to film the activity or to write feedback notes for you.
3. Praise recent positives
This technique is useful for when the task is the trigger because student may have patterns of learned or real helplessness. Identify when you think the behaviour is going to escalate, then counter feelings of refusal by scaffolding with positive language. Refer to a recent achievement the student has made and how this shows they’ll be able to do a good job of this task.
4. Be silent
This technique is useful when a student is getting angry. Remain completely silent until they have calmed down and finished talking. Give the student the space to work things out for themselves. It may be important for this to take place away from the class to remove their audience. If they roll their eyes, yell, kick the door – just stand and be silent. Eventually the adrenalin wears off and the student will begin to be aware of their behaviour and may become embarrassed or shameful.
5. Refer to attainable boundaries
This involves chunking your expectations down. Simply saying ‘behave’ implies a series of expectations. Remember you’re dealing with children, make sure they know what you want. Break down expectations with time limits e.g. ‘In the next 5 minutes I want the first two sentences written on your page’ or ‘In 1 minute I’m going to check you’ve tidied your table’.
6. Reduce and extend personal space
If the student is getting angry, extend the physical personal space. The more cross they are, the more space they need.
7. Redirect to learning and let them get on with it
Once you’ve given the instruction and redirected back to learning, get out of the way quickly to avoid further confrontation. Teaching isn’t about you and it isn’t about your students, it’s about learning.
8. Ignore
Tactically ignore secondary behaviour and praise the student next to them who is doing the right thing.
9. Listen
We all want to be heard, use reflective listening so the student knows you have understood them. For example ‘I can hear that you are frustrated and upset with your group. You still need to work with your group but I can hear that you’d rather work on your own’.
10. Get assistance from another staff member
Asking for assistance is a useful strategy. You might want the other staff member just to look after an upset or angry student to allow them to cool off (time out).
Use this Self Reflection tool to ascertain how you are going in behaviour management in your classroom. You might also want to read my post 6 Ways To Manage Behaviour Positively.
Question for you: When student behaviour escalates, what can you do to de-escalate in order to restore a sense of calm in your classroom?
