Sorting Out Behaviour: A Head Teacher's Guide - Hardcover

Rowe, Jeremy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781350116 ISBN 13: 9781781350119

Publisher: Independent Thinking Press, 2012

Synopsis

Inspirational, simple, profound and clear this guide provides no-nonsense advice providing teachers with the confidence to implement transformational, successful behavioural management structures within the school environment.

Drawing on years of experience, the author shares the most effective methods of classroom management - avoiding disruption - enabling teachers to ensure that pupils receive the best education, with minimal distraction. He provides a stress-free, step-by-step guide for teachers, parents and educational leaders in creating a positive approach to challenging behaviour in groups and individuals.; Inspirational, simple, profound and clear this guide provides no-nonsense advice providing teachers with the confidence to implement transformational, successful behavioural management structures within the school environment.

About this title

About the Authors

Jeremy Rowe, the 'ultimate 21st century headmaster', is now a CEO who combines his 20 plus years of teaching experience with traditional values, and a realistic perspective, to put into practice an effective method of management that has previously helped him become a successful head teacher and public speaker. Jeremy has regularly written articles for a range of magazines and online publications, and he has also worked with PiXL and a range of schools and multi-academy trusts. He believes that implementing simple but effective rules for school conduct results in a happy and successful school.

Since establishing Independent Thinking 25 years ago, Ian Gilbert has made a name for himself across the world as a highly original writer, editor, speaker, practitioner and thinker and is someone who the IB World magazine has referred to as one of the world's leading educational visionaries.The author of several books, and the editor of many more, Ian is known by thousands of teachers and young people across the world for his award-winning Thunks books. Thunks grew out of Ian's work with Philosophy for Children (P4C), and are beguiling yet deceptively powerful little philosophical questions that he has created to make children's - as well as their teachers' - brains hurt.Ian's growing collection of bestselling books has a more serious side too, without ever losing sight of his trademark wit and straight-talking style. The Little Book of Bereavement for Schools, born from personal family experience, is finding a home in schools across the world, and The Working Class - a massive collaborative effort he instigated and edited - is making a genuine difference to the lives of young people from some of the poorest backgrounds.A unique writer and editor, there is no other voice like Ian Gilbert's in education today.

From the Back Cover

SORTING OUT BEHAVIOUR is the view from the head teacher's chair when it comes to getting behaviour right across the whole school.
If you want to get the public, the papers and politicians hot under the collar you only need mention 'classroom behaviour'. It's a subject everyone has an opinion on - and it's rarely positive. For every media-fuelled horror story of disruptive behaviour there is a knee-jerk, sack the teachers, blame the parents, get the troops in response which often makes things worse when it comes to actually engaging children in learning. This book is not only about effective behaviour strategies that genuinely work but it is also special as it has been written by a practising head teacher, drawing on that unique perspective of whole school behaviour. Full of helpful, practical, do-able tips and ideas it is relevant for any teacher, manager or leader in all sorts of schools.
"I strongly recommend this extremely useful and practical guide, which demonstrates that effective behaviour management is about clarity, transparency, consistency and a set of manageable policies and procedures which are kept under constant review. Drawing on the author's vast, first-hand experience, it is a source of common sense and practical pointers which would enable all school staff from trainees to experienced school leaders to review their behaviour policies, practices and procedures."
Brian Lightman, General Secretary, Association of School and College Leaders
"Thank you to Jeremy Rowe for providing a plain English, common sense, easy to read guide about behaviour. Perhaps more importantly, he reminds us that children aren't criminals and that most schools are calm, productive, orderly places that are far removed from the image so often portrayed in the media. We need to hear that message more often."
Fiona Millar, Guardian Columnist
Jeremy Rowe combines his twenty plus years of teaching experience with traditional values and a realistic perspective to produce the effective method of management that has led him to become a successful head teacher and public speaker.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Sorting Out Behaviour

Introduction
Like most of us, I’ve worked in schools that have got their approach to behaviour right and in some that have got it wrong. Right is better. I’ve been lucky to have had the opportunity to work with magnificent teams at Pool Academy in Cornwall and Sir John Leman High School in Suffolk, both of which are packed with colleagues who know it is possible to improve and have been prepared to do what is needed to make that improvement happen.

By working together consistently and strategically, both schools were able to see genuine improvements. This can only be achieved by teams unswervingly operating valuebased systems. Without that, staff are out on a limb and the
minority of students who can be difficult will have a field day.

Like you, I am doing the job day-in and day-out and, like you, I get it wrong sometimes. In fact, the minute you think you’ve sussed it, a child will literally take your legs from under you! Remembering that is quite helpful, I think.

My basic view is that behaviour is about choice. That doesn’t mean that situations are equally easy for all of us to handle, but I believe that if we factor choice out of a situation we could be robbing an individual of their entitlements and their independence. If we were all predestined to behave in certain ways, all responses would be predictable. People choose how they behave. All of us.

Below is a short quiz:
Can bad behaviour be eradicated in our schools?
Can it be improved?
Should we try to improve it?*
For me, everything became clear as a result of one early conversation I had in which I was told there was no soap in the students’ toilets because ‘they messed around with it’. What this meant was that a couple of students did. What it really meant, though, was both profound and frightening. It did not simply mean that one or two students were running the school. They had in fact, been given the power to do something much more important. They were being allowed to
define the school. No child could wash their hands because one or two students didn’t want them to. From that point onwards, I made a virtue out of taking risks with what students could ‘cope with’ – and never looked back.

(*Answers: No, Yes, Yes.)

I hope that this book provides a straightforward description of what we do, and why we feel these approaches work. None of the ideas are patented; all of them are taken wholesale or adapted from other schools. You will know the idiosyncrasies of your own school and what would be successful.

I’m not using a Marxist or feminist perspective – mainly because I don’t understand them. I haven’t done a lot of research either, because I was too busy actually improving our school – so there aren't twenty pages of references at the back. Sorry.

Incidentally, it is important to remember that children are not criminals and that the negative behavioural choices a minority occasionally make are not crimes. Our job isn’t about retribution; it is about ensuring young people learn
from their mistakes, so they can take their place in society and succeed.

My intention is to set out a simple, occasionally slightly difficult, approach to student behaviour that actually works. My school isn’t perfect, but it is better as a result. And that’s important.

Key points
¦¦All schools can be made even better
¦¦ The outcome is worth it
¦¦ The students are worth it

Edition details

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1781350116
• ISBN 13: 9781781350119
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 104
• Editor: Gilbert Ian