The Success Zone

8. Playing favourites It is easy, as a teacher (and as a parent or leader), to socially and emotionally reward those who meet your expectations and conditions. It is also just as easy to be socially and emotionally distant from those who don’t. This is a form of conditional respect (do as you are told [...]

7. Being disorganized in your behaviour management Consider the recent major floods in Queensland and Brisbane (Australia).  In terms of the response from authorities and government, three key phases were apparent: preparation, the flooding itself and the recovery. In each of these phases observation, communication and action were present, providing clarity and autonomy in particular. [...]

Image by kodama (home) via Flickr 2. Investing your emotional budget in misbehaviour Take a moment to reflect on how we tend to respond to behaviour in general. As parents and as teachers, the generality is to respond to unwanted behaviour with significant emotional energy (for example, yelling, strong facial emotions and aggressive body language), [...]

For years the pastoral care structure in schools has been predicated and structured on the term ‘behaviour management’. As a term, it has helped focus attention more on negative classroom behaviour, and has assisted in the transfer of the responsibility of engaging a student from the teacher to the middle-level management in a school. I [...]