How to be a Successful Teacher: Strategies for Personal and Professional Development

"Reading this book may change your attitude to your students, your colleagues and most of all, to yourself. It is written accessibly and has a pleasingly irreverent tone, but a warning: it will challenge you to think differently!" - Phil Beadle, inspirational teacher and TES columnist

Teaching is a rewarding, yet demanding profession, one in which a person needs to be fully prepared. This book focuses on the applied psychological skills, strategies, and resources, which will help to ensure teachers are equipped with personal and professional expertise to survive in the classroom.

Key Features

• Provides an overview of important psychological themes within teaching such as confidence, motivation, and self esteem
• Explores physical issues related to successful psychological functioning, such as fitness and nutrition
• Offers advice and activities which show how to learn and use psychological skills techniques directly

Readily accessible to a wide audience, including internationally, the book assumes no prior knowledge of psychology. The authors give specific examples taken from a diverse range of professional situations with relevant theoretical underpinnings.

The text provides support to students taking teacher training courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. It will also help teachers in their formative professional years.

Paul Castle joined the University of Worcester as a senior lecturer in September 2004. He was a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and registered with the Health & Care Professions Council. As an active practitioner, with over 20 years’ experience, Paul provided applied psychology consultancy to clients in a wide array of disciplines, with a particular emphasis on providing individual- and small-group support to teachers and lecturers, to ameliorate the effects of stress, depression and burnout. As Mental Health and Wellbeing (MHWB or MWB) Lead for the School of Sport & Exercise Science at Worcester, Paul embraced the emerging issue of MWB in students and staff within primary, secondary and tertiary education. He was an advocate for reducing the stigma associated with MWB and provided applied psychological support in guiding students through their own ‘personal challenges’ by a combination of sport, physical activity and psychological skills training. Paul was trained in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), in conjunction with his professional grounding. He was an active member of the ‘Suicide Safer’ Project Group at the University of Worcester, which aimed to promote ‘suicide safer communities’ both regionally and nationally.

Scott Buckler has been involved in education since the 1990s, fluctuating between primary teaching, secondary teaching (science, computing, psychology), and universities (education, sport, psychology). From teaching research methods across the expanse of education (from the primary years through to doctorates), Scott has been an advocate of high quality research, through facilitating an open mind while maintaining academic integrity.

His research has encompassed many areas, often with the theme of personal and professional growth, through the lens of transpersonal psychology. His PhD thesis was interdisciplinary, combining anthropology and psychology to explore the way that the martial arts lead to personal transformation. Professionally, Scott’s research is predominantly in applied educational psychology, inclusive education, and research methods.

Scott is a Chartered Teacher and Chartered Psychologist.