On GPP, managing behaviour was an important part of effective teaching as it was important to motivate and instill enthusiasm within the children. Whilst following the school's procedure to begin with, with the permission of my AT (Accredited Tutor) I began to introduce my own behaviour management strategies within the classroom.
One of the major school polices which ran throughout the school, regardless of the year group was "STOP show me your hands" where children would put down their pencils or stop talking, show their hands were empty and listen to the teacher. This generally worked really well and children were very responsive to it. However, I do think that children would get bored of this and there was always a wait for a small group of children to stop and listen.
Following the school's policy was a strategy called fish in the bowl. This meant that if the class all behaved well (for example all quiet whilst taking the register etc) then they were rewarded with a fish in the bowl. Once 20 fish were in the bowl, the whole class were entitled to a treat which could have been things like 5 minutes extra play time or golden time on a Friday afternoon.
One of the major school polices which ran throughout the school, regardless of the year group was "STOP show me your hands" where children would put down their pencils or stop talking, show their hands were empty and listen to the teacher. This generally worked really well and children were very responsive to it. However, I do think that children would get bored of this and there was always a wait for a small group of children to stop and listen.
Following the school's policy was a strategy called fish in the bowl. This meant that if the class all behaved well (for example all quiet whilst taking the register etc) then they were rewarded with a fish in the bowl. Once 20 fish were in the bowl, the whole class were entitled to a treat which could have been things like 5 minutes extra play time or golden time on a Friday afternoon.
The theme for the term during my time on GPP was Ancient Egyptians. Encompassing this theme I decided to bring in my own behaviour management strategy. I introduced "Egyptian of the day" whereby all students names were put into a brown envelope and a child was pulled out of the envelope at the beginning of the day. This child was then responsible for helping the teacher, taking the register and most importantly setting a good example for the rest of the class i.e. sitting properly on the carpet, not talking when someone else was and putting their hand up if they had something to say. The Egyptian of the day was also responsible for "picking out" a name from the envelope the following day.
This worked extremely well and I found all children's behaviour improved because of the desire to become an Egyptian of the day. It gave the opportunity for every single child to be my helper and at the end of the week, the 5 children who had been the Egyptian of the day were rewarded with a positive comment from each member of the class during circle time on a Friday afternoon. This boosted many children's confidence, and each child was asked how they felt after the positive comments. It was obvious to me that each child were happy with the beaming smiles across their faces!
This worked extremely well and I found all children's behaviour improved because of the desire to become an Egyptian of the day. It gave the opportunity for every single child to be my helper and at the end of the week, the 5 children who had been the Egyptian of the day were rewarded with a positive comment from each member of the class during circle time on a Friday afternoon. This boosted many children's confidence, and each child was asked how they felt after the positive comments. It was obvious to me that each child were happy with the beaming smiles across their faces!
A further strategy I implemented during GPP was table points. Again sticking with the Ancient Egyptian theme I printed 5 pictures and laminated these for children to put points on the wall. The tables, in order were Hieroglyphs, Egyptian mummies, Tutankhamun, Egyptian cats and The River Nile.
The children absolutely loved this, and each day a nominated person from each table was allocated by me to be responsible for putting the points on for their team each time a point was awarded. I gave a child that lost concentration easily the job of counting the points at lunch time and home time on a daily basis. This helped his concentration and motivation to learn improve tremendously. He was very proud of his job and looked forwarded to tallying up the points twice a day. He was also responsible for relaying the number of points awarded to the rest of the class every day. Each table worked hard as a team and points were awarded for tables stopping and showing me their hands first, packing up the neatest and anything else that deserved points for good behaviour and work. At the end of the week the points would be totalled up and the table with the most amount of points would each be awarded a prize for their efforts.