‘Doing’ Behaviour in a way that works for you

Photo by Rupert Britton on Unsplash

“Because I was trying to be someone else for behaviour’s sake, the kids saw right through it and if you work with young people from alternative provisions they will tell you in four letter words what they think of it. In the same way, I have colleagues who are really cool and do fist pumps and high fives… but when I do that I sound like Julie Andrews trying to be Ali G.”

In this interview I talk to Caroline Doherty, @_C_J_B from Key Voices.

We talk about ideas around behaviour and my book ‘Miss, I don’t give a s**t: Engaging with challenging behaviour in schools.’  I talk about the importance of finding your own authentic way to ‘do’ behaviour, share a range of tools and techniques for teaching staff to add to their “toolbox” and consider some powerful ways schools can develop their whole school behaviour policy.

We talk about:

• My surprisingly long and varied teaching career
• Why I decided to focus on behaviour and my work in alternative provision
• Advice for being authentic in your approach to managing behaviour
• Why I wrote the book and the thinking behind its eye-catching title
• How I got to understand some of the reasons behaviour can become a barrier to learning
• The difference between a behaviour policy on paper and understanding how it works in practice, and the need to involve all stakeholders in drafting a policy
• The importance of senior leaders hearing pupil voice and understanding the experience of pupils who struggle with their behaviour
• Some practical tips for managing difficult classes

“I felt I had the potential here to give a different perspective and a different voice to behaviour and to say to teachers and teaching staff ‘how do you do behaviour?’  We don’t all do behaviour in the same way.”

Approx listening time: 1hr 15mins

Engage with challenging behaviour in your school and support staff effectively;

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