Reflections on what has been learned

The evidence from the correlation between constructs and strategies indicated that teachers tend to use both academic strategies as well as effort strategies with those children whom they felt were low in effort or de-motivated. The evidence indicated that these tended to be the children registered at the later stages of SEN and boys rather than girls but not the children registered at a level of EAL. The teachers, being the professionals they are, perhaps target these children academically in an effort to differentiate the curriculum appropriately in order to rule this out as a factor in the difficult to manage behaviour. This study brought out the links between the independent variables and the use of strategies in this very useful and explicit way. It also brought out the apparent lack of feedback

strategies and the evidence of lower use of typical effort strategies than strategies to promote immediate effort or differentiation.

The last page of the questionnaire allowed teachers space to reflect on the particular child about whom they had completed the questionnaire. The teachers were told that the quid quo pro INSET to be delivered as a thank you for their completion of questionnaires would be focused around these questions (shown as appendix 8). The responses showed that these teachers felt least equipped to deal with those students who have a high need for teacher attention and who find it difficult to be co-operative. In every school teachers wrote about children with emotional and behavioural difficulties as being those who they felt ill equipped to deal with. Every school had teachers who targeted these children with the same strategy ‘praise appropriate behaviour’. They used this strategy as a strategy to promote academic differentiation and with all achievement levels. Perhaps this indicates that they use this strategy to mean praise appropriate work behaviour. Several schools also mentioned ‘raise expectations’ as a strategy to target children with difficult behaviour, this is a typical effort strategy. Use of this strategy to deal with emotional behaviour seems to suggest that teachers are expecting better typical effort. This strategy, which was Hsted under two categories both ‘Need for teacher attention’ and ‘Language and literacy learning’, could be used implicitly or explicitly with the student, either way the message is ‘could do better’. Presumably the student would be perceived as doing better if she/her became less attention seeking, disruptive etc., and more self-motivated (‘Need for teacher

raising expectations had worked. It is unclear how teachers monitor and collect feedback about typical effort and the effects of strategy use. If they tend not to monitor and evaluate changes in children’s typical effort behaviour it may be the reason why these strategies are not used as much as the other two types of strategy.

As a result of this feedback the schools were offered INSET that focused on the emotional needs of the children that they taught. Attempts were made to help them to remember group and whole class strategies that they were already using occasionally to target these students for example drama, circle time or circle of friends and to reflect on the types of behaviour that they would be monitoring and how. Some of the teachers reflected that the personal and social development that they would like to target in these children required a high investment in group work and group skills which was very adult intensive and that amount of adult time or curriculum time was not always available. Many of them were aware of and frustrated by their reliance on immediate effort strategies in order to discipline, (for example ‘punish’ or ‘cajole’) instead of developing children’s personal and social skills. They perceived these immediate effort strategies as often resulting in short term improvements in behaviour but not long-term ones.

In two of the schools some of the teachers were anxious about working with parents. Some teachers were frustrated by what they perceived as parents who did not stimulate their children’s learning at home. They seemed unaware of how understanding the child’s history can make sense of behaviour and help them as

teachers feel more empathetic towards the child and the child’s family. They also seemed unaware of how to connect children and parents with local CAMHS services and how to offer each other support as a staff group. Effort strategies described by phot teachers such as ‘establish mentor system’ (an immediate effort strategy) and ‘children to appraise each others’ efforts’ (a typical effort strategy) rely on the children’s own personal resources from within the classroom to mediate the less co-operative behaviour. Teachers in the main study gave the impression that they were not doing anything for the child about whom they had behaviour concerns unless they were focused on the individual themselves and the strategies were carried out by them as teachers rather than by a peer or another adult.

6.5. Personal and professional development opportunities that were