Behaviour management as a temporary conceptualisation

As already noted, McNally et al (2005) made the point that behaviour management was at best a temporary conceptualisation of use to trainees. Powell and Tod (2004: 2) acknowledged that ‘skills in delivering a range of strategies are clearly a necessary part of an NQT's survival toolkit’. From both authors the implication is that a focus on a discrete set of teacher skills known as behaviour management, typically construed as an awareness of strategies to use in response to misbehaviour, might have some utility in the early stages of a teacher’s career. In many ways this links to how individuals often learn to tackle other complex tasks that ultimately involve multiple skills being used in an integrated, and sometimes simultaneous, manner. The notion of a progression from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence is a relevant consideration:

 Unconscious incompetence

The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognise their own deficits in this area or the skills it will be necessary to acquire.

 Conscious incompetence

Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, they recognise their current limitations and have some understanding of how much there is to learn.

 Conscious competence

The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, performing the skill or applying the knowledge requires a lot of conscious effort as little has become automated or second nature.

 Unconscious competence

The individual is so familiar with applying the skill or knowledge that it has become second nature. As a result, considerably less conscious effort needs to be devoted to it and the individual can give more attention to other tasks.

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The implication is that, at the early stage of learning, an individual has to devote a lot of conscious effort to being competent. A beginning teacher is likely to need to devote a lot of conscious attention to individual aspects of their role and one of these is likely to be the management of pupil behaviour. With experience, strategies related to behaviour management will hopefully become seamlessly integrated into the teacher’s practice and require less conscious attention, particularly in relation to the more commonly occurring, predictable behaviours. Viewed from this perspective there is some justification for viewing behaviour management as a discrete area of professional activity for which there is a definable body of desirable knowledge and specific skills that can be honed. The issue would be if, in temporarily compartmentalising this area of activity, it became permanently conceptualised as distinct from the broad range of knowledge, skills and understanding that represent a teacher’s practice.

Further support for the idea that what a beginning teacher needs - or feels they need – may be different to what they will need later comes from research that has suggested that teachers progress through a number of stages as they move from being trainees into their early careers. Fuller and Brown (1975) referred to three discrete stages of student teachers’ development. The first two stages were defined as ‘survival’ and ‘mastery’. At the third stage, Fuller and Brown (1975) argued, the student either settles into routines and becomes resistant to change or becomes ‘consequence orientated’. The teacher who is ‘consequence orientated’ effectively shifts their attention to a concern for their impact on their pupils and is responsive to feedback about their teaching. This progression can be summarised as moving from ‘survival concerns’ to ‘task concerns’ to ‘impact concerns’ (Furlong and Maynard 1995). The suggestion that behaviour management is either a temporary conceptualisation (McNally et al 2005) or a necessary part of an NQT's survival toolkit (Powell and Tod 2004) reflects the idea that an explicit and discrete focus on this area of activity may be necessary, understandable and justified. In many ways the behaviour for learning approach (Powell and Tod 2004, Ellis and Tod 2009) is about encouraging teachers to move from the survival concern of ‘how will I cope with behaviour?’ and the task concerns of ‘do I know enough

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strategies to manage behaviour?’ to a concern regarding impact, expressed in terms of the development of learning behaviour.

4.4 Summary

Any consideration of how well teachers are prepared in relation to pupil behaviour through their initial teacher training ultimately leads to the question of what the desirable body of knowledge, skills and understanding would represent.

Policy and guidance has long emphasised the importance of a whole school approach to behaviour and the key role of the school behaviour policy in establishing this. Reflecting the policy and guidance, most schools’ behaviour policies are likely to be underpinned by a combination of rules, rewards and sanctions. As this chapter has outlined, even within this broad framework there are likely to be variations, sometimes quite considerable, in schools’ policies. In considering a trainee’s preparedness in relation to managing behaviour, there needs to be recognition that, in some schools, a teacher will be expected to take responsibility for establishing a framework for managing behaviour within their own classroom whereas in others this may be prescribed. How much of a problem this is, and which is experienced as easier, is likely to be influenced by the teacher in terms of factors such as their confidence and whether they prefer to be directed or take a lead.

The ability to use praise, rewards, positive correction and sanctions is an important professional skill. This naturally requires the teacher to know how to formulate praise and positive correction. Bill Rogers has been prolific in writing about teacher language and, as noted, some of his strategies have been incorporated into National Strategy documents (DfES 2003b, 2004a). Rewards and sanctions may be defined by the schools in which the beginning teachers find themselves or it may be left to individual teachers to develop these for their own classroom. The latest government guidance (TA 2012a) is explicit in recognising that, though individuals will have a personal style, they must adapt their practice to fit with the school behaviour policy in the interests of consistency. The use of praise, rewards, positive correction and sanctions is largely premised on a view

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that pupils will typically find certain things rewarding and other things aversive. Part of understanding how to use these key behaviour management tools is recognising that some individuals will experience and interpret these differently to the adult’s prediction. For example, a secondary school pupil may not find public expression of their teacher’s approval rewarding. In considering how teachers can be trained to use praise, rewards, positive correction and sanctions effectively there is a need to give consideration to developing awareness of the fact that practices designed to work for the majority are always experienced and interpreted by individuals.

A challenge in training teachers in relation to behaviour is recognising that there are specific skills and techniques that can be learned, but not creating an impression that this is a discrete area of teacher activity. As Powell and Tod (2004) acknowledge, managing behaviour is not an aim in itself. Instead there needs to be a focus on the purpose and outcomes of behaviour management, which they define as the promotion of effective learning behaviours. As noted earlier in this chapter, Ofsted (2011) has noted a correlation between the quality of teaching and the behaviour in schools. For trainees, who it is suggested (e.g. DfE 2012a)are concerned about behaviour, the suggestion that they should focus on the quality of their teaching may not be enough to provide the confidence and competence they seek in relation to behaviour as they take up their first appointments. The notion that behaviour management may serve a useful role as a temporary conceptualisation (McNally et al 2005) of a particular area of a teacher’s professional activity is worthy of consideration. It would seem to recognise the possibility of changing needs and reflects research on stages of teacher development. It encourages acceptance that what the individual needs now may not be the same as they need two or three years in the future. If these immediate perceived needs are left unaddressed then there is a risk that the individual enters the classroom feeling unprepared. Drawing on Bandura’s work (e.g. 1986), Giallo and Little (2003: 24) make the point that ‘the feeling of being prepared is essential in the development of confidence in one’s ability to execute a behaviour’. They cite older research from Lewin et al (1983) that demonstrated that ‘teachers who had formal instruction in the basic behaviour principles

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during their preparation as student teachers had improved their ability to manage classroom misbehaviour’ (Giallo and Little 2003: 24).