It has been a hectic
term so far, the prelims, the workload and the incessant cries of “Miss, can we
watch Elf yet?” have been exacerbated by the additional pressure that I have had
to complete my final probationer report.
After 4 long years at university, a year and a half of probation (due to
absence) and a lot of CPL, finally I can say I am an NQT.
With that, I feel I want to take my blog in a new direction.
I feel I want to focus more on the different elements of teaching using my own
observations and that of others to try to share best practice, put forward a
few of my own ideas and in particular focus on my new found love for restorative
behaviour management.
This week, I am going to focus on my newest strategy for
dealing with an S1 class (12/13 year olds) whose low level disruptions and
behaviours have caused a wider problem overall.
It all started with a bout of tears and a hysterical pupil. At least that was when I decided I had to be
brave and take the big step towards facilitating a restorative circle in
class. I asked the pupils to move tables
and put chairs into a circle in the middle of the room. At this, the uncertainty of change and trying
something new was plastered across 25 faces which stared back at me. Begrudgingly, they arranged themselves in a
circle.
Now came the tricky part – getting them to identify what the
problem was with the class that had made it an unpleasant atmosphere. Each of them thought hard for a second before
I asked them to raise their hand if they felt responsible for something that
was wrong with the class. To my great
surprise, a lot of the class put their hands up to volunteer to share their
guilt. They each made very valid points –
none of which I could have disagreed with at all. This demonstrated their ability to recognise
when they were wrong and how they could go about fixing the issue. This was the first step.
Next, we discussed what we would like the classroom to feel
like when we were there – me as much as them. We came up with some great
adjectives such as safe, respected and happy.
Next we had to work out what needs to be changed in order to create this
atmosphere we all wanted. As a result,
we renewed the classroom rules, people apologised to those who they had hurt,
disrupted or annoyed and we agreed to work together as a class to make things
better.
Our final objective was to set ourselves personal targets to
pin on our new target board. These are
to be reviewed each week and when a pupil meets their target they receive a
reward for it such as extra library time or a merit. These targets require a lot of
self-reflection from pupils and are at first understandably lacking in detail
or depth. Gradually, by week two, these started
to become more focused.
There are still a lot of improvements to our class that need
to be made, we still have circle time at least once a month and there are still
people who haven’t met their targets.
Each week, we have our ups and downs but it is certainly a more positive
classroom to be in. Pupils have a visual
reminder of their targets and can update, revisit and change them as often as
they like.
