2. Afterhours chat on Behaviour Management CPD

Welcome to the HLNSC podcast from the teaching mentors. I'm your host, Naomi Anderson. And in this podcast, I'm talking to my colleagues, Dan Bland, Krista Price, and Kate Robinson. About behavior management. This followed a CPD session. We did internally for the college last week where Dean had researched and presented and the idea with this podcast is to create an after hours, a chance to chat and mull over and discuss and reflect on what we've learned. Without further ado, here's our chat.

My name is Dean and I teach the Level three Farrier standards apprenticeship at Herford School of Farriery. Hi, I'm Krista. I teach Equine studies at the Walford campus. Hi, I'm Kate and I'm Head of Quality Improvement here at the college. But I was an English teacher. Hi, I'm Naomi. I teach geography and politics at Ludlow College, and I'm also one of the teaching mentors along with Krista and Dean. So Dean, you presented some really brilliant C P D for our colleagues on behavior management last week. What for you do you think the key messages were that you wanted to get across? Yeah, I suppose I wanted to support those participants really help them understand the kind of rationale in the context for behavior management and how it kind, relates to themselves and their roles. As tutors at, Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College and and also I suppose giving them some sort of framework to develop behavior, management approaches. So I suppose that was the main element. And then, the final part really was about me sharing my experiences and providing an opportunity for them to share their experiences which I think is valuable because then it kind of creates this kind of community of learning and we're supporting each other. Yeah, it was really nice listening to other people and kind of the penny dropping about some of the key things you were saying that weren't about how you deal with an individual there and then in the moment, but more about how you plan your course so that you never have to do that. That was really valuable. You say you've learned from experience, and I know you did a lot of research into it beforehand. Mm-hmm. What would you say, did you have an epiphany at some point? Did you, have you always been good with behavior management? N no. I, I would say I, I did have an epiphany, but it wasn't epiphany so much here at Hereford however it was when I was doing the kind of consultancy work for World Horse Welfare. And working overseas and supporting I suppose development of behaviors around equine welfare. So when I was working for World Horse Welfare, we as, as well as kind of like supporting the development and training of Farriers, Saddlers vets and you know, people within the community could, that could directly support equine welfare. We also understood that we had to kind of influence really the behavior of the people that were looking after the horses every day. And getting involved with that kind of helped me. And I did have a bit of an epiphany moment. It was like that. It did kind of help me understand actually a lot of the kind of challenges I'd been Kind of getting frustrated with, as a farrier working in the UK and trying to influence my own client base and, and horse owners generally to look after their horses in a way that was more supportive and kind of collaborative with, with what I was doing. A lot of those kind of like frustrations actually were similar frustrations in those kind of communities, but I mean, you know, contextually slightly different, but fundamentally they're kind of same. Mm-hmm. And, and as I started to kind of like work through ways of kind of influencing people in those communities, I kind of realized that actually I could bring this across. So it got me really interested in kind of in human behavior and how we human behavior. And I suppose that kind of opened the door for me. When then came and started working for Herford to think about how can I influence farriery apprentices. Interest, isn't it? Way? Yeah. Yeah. The way you said collaboration, that really rings a bell for me. I've got a couple of students over the 10 years I've been teaching that have really changed the way I deal with students. Mm-hmm. And it's definitely been a collaboration because they're presenting as angry or they don't wanna be there or, you know, there's, there's a million things that are going wrong in their lives and college is the least of their worries, quite honestly. Yeah. And, and I find the, the, you know, the tougher the behavior, the more I need to not really get under their skin, but, but just be understanding. Mm-hmm. A colleague of mine came across this word this phrase, Maryanne our Learning support. She, she stopped me in the car park and she said, unconditional, what was it? Unconditional positive regard. And that's like unconditional positive regard. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought that was a really nice phrase actually for. When you, when you take a deep breath and you go, okay, right, we're gonna deal with this, aren't we? How about you, Krista? Yeah, I think I'm less of an epiphany type person. I think I was probably that angry, annoying student. Oh wow. So I come from a place of understanding I get why, you know, why they're behaving in that way. I think I've always been able to relate to them. I've got better at it as I've got older and more experienced. And I think I, and I worked in a a boarding school for a while running an equestrian center there. And dealing with very rich people actually is quite enlightening because they're. It's a completely different world and they have a, a real expectation and having to sort of almost win over that type of person actually really helped me with a different level of understanding. So I sort of always felt that I understood the, the difficult students and the students that were, you know, a bit moody and struggled at college and that sort of thing. But actually then dealing with the very privileged and the people who, you know, can, are able to throw money at a situation and get what they want. And they're used to getting what they want because of, you know who they are. I had to develop a, a slightly softer way of dealing with people and a bit more of a kind of, you know, go round in through the back door slightly, you know, method of dealing with people. And I feel that that really helped me to be able to manage my students better and, and have a, a more of an understanding. But also becoming a parent was another thing that helped. Because, you know, when you were young and you don't have children, you often think what these children should do as they're told. And, you know, why are these, you know, why are these children not doing as they're supposed to do? And, you know, some, it's very easy to kind of slip into that, I think, isn't it, as a young person who hasn't actually, you know, had to be a parent and, and. I think you are all parents and, and we all know that actually parenting's really difficult and every child is different and you do have to deal with every child in a different way. And there isn't, you know, a set rule book for this is how we deal with this situation. And so I find that. You know, very much like what you said at the beginning, Naomi, actually, that kind of really resonates with me because quite often when people say, oh, how do you deal with, you know, behavior and, and what do we do with behavior management? I, I don't necessarily see it as dealing with behavior management. It's, you have to develop a relationship with your students. And for me that's vital. You know, I take that very seriously. And, and you know, I need to understand every student in my classroom. I need to understand, what, what makes them tick, what interests them. How can I find a way in to get and build that relationship with those students? I think setting rules and boundaries and having a very clear classroom management, style and, and desire and, and your management can be slightly different to the rest of your team. So, you know, I think as a team we work really well together in terms of, you know, our equine team. We're all very different. And how I manage my classroom might be very different to Ellens, but the rules are the same. We don't get that, oh, well when Ellen's teaching us we're allowed to do this, or when Joe's teaching us, we're allowed to do that because, mobile phones are not allowed in the classroom and they are put in a box on the table. They're allowed to come out if we need them to use them for research. But, we don't have mobile phones, which eliminates that low level disruption of that use of mobile phones. They don't necessarily sit where they wanna sit. We take command of the room, you know, the room is ours. This is our domain, yet you are being invited into our space and we tell you where to sit. Sometimes we let'em sit where they want but it allows them to develop their relationships with each other as well. And we did that very early on, within the year. And it's, it's, you know, we've got a, the, the group that we kind of piloted We set up a system where each of our tables has got a name, so we've got our group tables. Each of our tables has got a name and each of the seats has a number. And when they walk into the classroom, they don't just sit down, they, we've got a, I'll show you here. We've got a pot of lolly sticks and each of the lolly sticks has got a name and a number on. So we take a, we take a lolli stick. We tell them where they're sitting based on random selection. And that allowed them all to interact with each other very early on rather than, than them developing these little clicks within the group. They now. Can work with everybody. And those sorts of things, I feel are, are very beneficial for that management of a classroom and, and that behavior management, because you've got a team, you develop a team within your group and they function as a team and they might not be best friends with everybody. And that's. You know, perfectly fine. But actually, you know, I can put that person with that person or I can put that person with that person and we don't have that, or no, they can't work together. And these people can't be put together. And I think that is, setting that up early on and getting that developed has made a really big difference with the group that we sort of trialed that with, with And, you know, we've had some other, other teachers from other departments come in and, and cover our lessons occasionally, and they've gone, oh my God, they're such a nice group to teach. You know, they're just, they just get involved in everything. There's no fuss made. When you set them up with a task, they all sit with anybody, they'll. Sit, you know, they'll be, they'll sit where you put them. Proud. Teacher moment isn't, it? Isn't. Yes. I think, I think that's really, really important. You know, those boundaries, those rules, and just developing those relationships with, with the students. That's, you know, that's where that ties in with what you said Dean, didn't it? On the thing you said, you take ownership of the room. You are in there early. Yeah. Get it all set up. Yeah. I certainly found, I've certainly found that. Sorry, Dean. I certainly found that through my career, just it was a slow development of realizing how much agency you can have and it just, Realizing that actually, you know, your words influenced Dean and slowly realizing how much influence you can have on the room. And so the sorts of things you were talking about, Krista, of kind of just recognizing that I have complete control of this room is my room. Just as I have complete control of my plan and my scheme and you know, how, what we're doing and just slowly recognizing the, the. The vastness of that control actually has made a huge difference to me and sort of sort of seeing the whole thing around behavior as a kind of toolbox. You were saying, Krista, that different people in the teams may do things slightly differently. And you've got this kind of toolbox of things that you need. And also sort of thinking about the different students that you are working with and they will need different. Responses. They all need different for us to pull out different tools from that toolbox cuz they're all so different. I was thinking about what you were saying Naomi, about unconditional positive regard and I think one of the things that, that sort of slowly has dawned on me is that there's always a reason. So whatever the behavior, there is always a reason and it's very often. You know, I think at the bottom it is very often fear-based. So behavior that we find difficult is very often fear-based, and it's trying to kind of unpick what those fears are or support those fears or kind of Contain those fears so that they're not overwhelming the student in different ways and using the different tools that we've got. But it's it is an evolving process over time, isn't it? Sort of recognizing how much agency you have got in your classroom? Definitely. That certainly has been for me. When you, when you say agency, Hmm. What do I mean? Yeah, power, I think, I mean, sort of. All right. Okay. How much influence you've got. So I think I think as teachers, certainly as new teachers, if I remember back to when I was a new teacher, I think. I was reactive more than proactive. Right. And it took me a while to recognize how proactive I could be, I am in complete control of the layout of my room. I'm in complete control of what activities we do, when we do them, how we do them. You know, I'm in complete control of what I ask students to do and what and what how I respond to any behavior that they. That they show is being able to sort of react and respond and, and maybe get ahead of the, the distractors and the chatter boxes that will kind of derail your lesson planning. Yes. You can get ahead of it, can't you? If you know that somebody Yeah. You know, sat, sat just there in your eye line is gonna be twiddling around or moving and distracting you and spoil your flow. You can get ahead of it. And I think that comes with time and confidence it does definitely. The, the thing I've seen in the new teachers, and probably I was probably a little bit guilty of it as well when I was, you know, early career teacher, is that. They will quite often feel that discipline or challenging a student about their behavior needs to be firm and direct and they almost go a little bit over the top in terms of that. So you are sort of talk, what you're talking about when you talk about power, Kate, you are, it's a calm power, isn't it? Absolutely. It's like, I dunno if anybody ever watched Caesar Milan, I dunno, he's a bit controversial, isn't he? Caesar Milan, yes. But actually that, you know, he, he always said Calm control or calm confidence. I can't remember the exact wording that he used, but actually sort of his mannerisms and how you sort of have that calm manner about you when you're dealing with it. And I think, you know, Dean and I obviously, and I know Naomi's, you know, you, you work, you've been with horses as well. And I think when you deal with animals, you, you have to develop. That ability. And if you can bring that into how you, no, it sounds really bad. Isn't it bad actually, if you bring that into Yes. Managing your student. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you know, if you approach an animal with that same, you know, ra yes, they're gonna, they're gonna react, you know, you approach. You approach a frightened dog or a dog showing, adverse behavior or a horse or any other animal showing that behavior that you don't like with that, you know, whoa, whatcha are you gonna, you're gonna get that adverse reaction back. And most of, most of the people teaching our subjects have some sort of background of, of that. And I think if you can bring that into your classroom absolutely. And, and see it in that way, you don't get that same that's true reaction. It's a really, really unhelpful things. I got told when I was new to teaching, which were things like in September, don't smile till Christmas. Yeah, that's, I read it as well. Yeah. Don't Christmas. No. Be friendly and welcoming. Yeah. I'm gonna check on everyone's wellbeing and be really nice to everyone for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I think that kinda calm the calmness you're talking about comes from recognizing the experience of seeing how much influence you have and how many, how many tools you've got in your toolbox, and the more confident you are, the sort of the experience of being able to use them, it allows you to, to settle back a bit, doesn't it? And know actually I've got all the resources I need, you know, I've got all the mental and emotional resources I need to deal with this. I can sit back. Don't need to panic. You know, it's, it, it's fine. And I think it is, it is, it is with confidence and time and experience that those things developed. Definitely. Yeah. I think you learn how you learn how a student might react as well, don't you? The more students you've taught, the more, the more young people you've had in your, in your classroom, the more you can recognize quickly. You know, where this behavior's coming from you know, what are the reasons behind it? And, and you know, like you say, Kate, it's often fear or lack of self-esteem I had a conversation with one of my mentees recently where, you've got these loud students in the classroom and they want to answer all the questions and they wanna take over. And it doesn't mean that they're confident just because they appear to be confident actually they're doing it. It's a lot of, it's bravado. We know that the nature of being a teenager is that, you're very self-centered. Your brain is completely and utterly, on you and what you need and what you want. And they overthink everything and they overreact to things. And that is just the nature of being a teenager. And that is part of growing up. And they've gotta learn how to handle those emotions and how to handle those reactions. And, you know, if you go in there with a fiery response to something, you are gonna get a fiery response back, whereas if you actually just go in and talk to them like an adult and talk to them like a human being, and I think it's remembering that human element, isn't it? Okay. They might be doing something that's quite annoying or they might not be doing their work, or they might be, you know, they're trying to get a rise from you because they want your attention. But you know, they want your attention because they're struggling, because they don't know how to verbalize that because they dunno how to ask for help because they're lacking in confidence. Or are they bored? Can I ask the three of you, if you have a class, where the behavior is, difficult or unsettled, what, what are the two or three strategies, that you most lean on, with, with a group that you are finding tricky? Is there any two or three strategies that you find most useful? I will try and take them out into a practical setting if possible, because usually that's where they want to be and they're easier, I find them easier to manage, is where I'm comfortable. I would quite happily have 20 students on a yard with 16 horses and, and be able to manage that much more easily than I would. Have 20 students sat in a classroom. Yeah. That's where I feel comfortable and where they wanna be. So I'll often just, you know, either give Joe a ring or whatever and just get them up and go, right, come on, let's go and look at a horse. Yes. That's, that's usually my go-to strategy. Yeah. I mean, pretty much the Farriery apprentices are the same. If, if they, if they're getting fractious you know take the lid off it and just take them outside and start doing something practical. And, and, and that works really well so we've got quite a few similarities there, Krista. It was also chuckling away you could of talking about how a lifetime of experience working with horses prepare you. You unexpected Yeah. Does one Yeah. Meditative kind of qualities that you can stay calm and. Quiet, but do have to exude that the face of the store, don't you? Yeah, you do, but also you around, but they can't talk to you either. So you've gotta work out what the problem is and you've gotta read their behavior and Yeah. You know, if you can, if you can bring that to to your students, then I think you'd be successful. Yeah. So I think I've, no, I've note down my three just quickly cuz I'm in a very different environment in a classroom teaching A Levels To you two. So it's similar though. You have to get'em busy. Mm-hmm. Move on. They're bored. If they're being fractious. And then divide on conquer, we'll have a little bit of a carousel and I'm gonna split you up and 1, 2, 3, 4, move you into different groups that's quiet and group down quite quickly. And then if, if, if I feel it's the right moment, I might pause actually. And go, right, okay, come on, we've gotta get on with this. We need to work together and set some ground rules and just get everyone to think about their behavior for a minute. And, and give myself a chance to go, no, that this is not okay. We, we need to get through this lesson. And, and sometimes you haven't got the opportunity to change your activity. You know, you have just gotta teach a bit of boring theory that they need to write down. And I have resorted too, and I, yeah. I'm not sure we should keep this in the edit actually, but I have resorted to asking a student to leave the room. Yeah. You know, you clearly don't want to be here. Get out. And that's really helped. Yeah. It has really helped. And the next time they come in, they're a little bit more sheepish and you know, ready to have a discussion and we'll have had a talk about it. Mm-hmm. And that's, that's usually been the, the best approach at the time. But you, you have to make these decisions on the fly and you're not always sure you made the right one. Are you? I think if you're removing a student from a classroom as well, it needs to be like the extreme. Yeah. Doesn't it? It shouldn't be the norm. No, no. That you remove a, a student from a classroom, you know, obviously you are sort of thinking, should I have done that? But I think sometimes it can become the norm to just remove the problem. I mean, sometimes I might usually with, you know, we, it's, normally it's girls, isn't it? Teenage girls in my group. So we might get a giggling session where they can't control their giggling. And so I will say, Can you go outside for five minutes, get yourself under control and come back again? But you can also bring some form of, like you say, get them up, don't you Get them up, move them around the room. Yes. Mm-hmm. So if you can't go out into a practical setting, cause I know that people will be sort of thinking, oh that's great cuz we can do that. But not everybody can, you know, is there something you've got in your, in your classroom that you can. You know, that's physical that they can touch and do and move and, you know, have some, have some activities. Yeah. Bring, bring the pens to the board and everybody writes something on the board. Yeah, that was a good one. Your, your big paper that you talked about as one of your retrieval activity, just stick some big paper, give'em some pens. Get'em to draw some pictures. Move them around, swap the groups around. Just, just change. I think don't be afraid to change something. If it isn't working, you don't have to stick rigidly to that plan of your lesson. You can just go, right, okay, this isn't working. Let's just stop. Have a rethink, move everybody about, start again. Team presentation time. Get yourself in the library. Yes. Yeah. I think as well it's a four year apprenticeship ours, but what I've seen within that there are certain kind of rhythms. So it's generally the case that when they get towards the end of the second year, beginning the third year, this is at a point at which they are beginning to do a lot more within the workplace with their employer. So they, feel like they are farriers, but but the exam is a long way off, you know, or feels a long way off. And so that's when the kind of behavior starts to kind of like drift away. You know, it's cuz they don't kind of understand the importance and they now think, actually I can do this. So the novelty's gonna worn off. And what I find has been helpful in at that time is just to reset things, is say, all right, okay, we've achieved this goal. Now let's look at the next goal. And by resetting those goals at that kind of moment, helps'em refocus and reengage and re understand the urgency again. Yeah, it brings it alive. So I suppose there are times within the course that similar things happen. Second years getting towards the end, lose the focus a little bit. You know, they're, coming to the end. They know they've got a job coming up or they're looking for jobs coming up. It's trying to keep them motivated and like, say, you know, that goal, that end goal, you know, come on, keep, keep you focused. There's not a lot left to do now. You're gonna be finished really soon, especially the ones who have done level two and then a level three. They've been here for three years. You know, it's quite a long time to, to be working hard and yeah, we see the same, they just kind of drop off a little bit of, you know, a little bit of that motivation. Yeah. So yeah, I can. Agree with you on that. one Dean, you see different, you, you find as well. I dunno if everybody else finds this. I mean Naomi, you are teaching A levels, so maybe not so much, but others who are teaching sort of technical, technical subjects, there's a different. Mentality with each of the year groups. So like your level two students have a very different feel and a very different mentality to level three students. And then again, your second year level three students. Mm-hmm. And you often find when the, I dunno if anybody else finds that when you c when they come back as second year students in the first few weeks, they sort of need squashing a little bit cuz they're a bit cocky and they're a bit like we've been here before. We are not the newbies anymore. You get that kind of like, you know, that year six mentality a little bit when they get about to go up to high school. You know, we're, we're the big guns. So I think. That it's equally important with your second years coming back in September, that you reestablish those rules and boundaries and, and, and make sure that they are setting that example for, for those first years and for those level twos. And I think give them that responsibility. You know, put that on them. You are second year students. This is our expectation. Our expectations are higher. You know, naomi, you'll know from doing the NPQ course that. Setting high expectations of your learners and actually saying to these students, you are more capable than you think you are, because usually they are. Yeah, I like that at the beginning of the second year because there's a maturity there, the metacognition there. Yeah. Starting to get more independent and Yeah. And you can really tie all of that together with those groups. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I really like teaching second year students. You know, I really enjoy, you know, developing that metacognition, developing those high level skills, and you just get a different relationship with them. They, they're more mature, they trust you, they respect you, and you get, you know, more of a kind of, More of a mentor, like collaboration, again, relationship with that group than you, than potentially you do with the, the level twos in the first years. Yeah. Is it it they are different. They're a different entity and you sort of have to almost treat them a little bit differently I think.

There, you have it. That was us talking about behavior management after a CPD session that a Dean ran. For us a few weeks ago. I hope you found that interesting. Thank you for listening. That was Krista price, dean bland, Kate Robinson and Naomi Anderson. The teaching mentors talking about behavior management.

Over the coming weeks, we'll be podcasting and interviewing colleagues around the college, about a range of teaching techniques and theories and concepts in teaching and learning, and we look forward to sharing our findings with you. Please hit subscribe if you've liked what you're listening to and leave us a review. We'd be thrilled to hear from you.