Working with teachers for effective behaviour management

Originally posted by Daniel
I've noticed that there seems to be a common issue in many schools and it's that teachers and TAs aren't always singing from the same hymn sheet on behaviour management. I've compiled a little checklist to encourage you to think about your actions as a TA and it may be worth going through them with your teacher. I hope that this will help teachers and TAs to consider agreeing ground rules for behaviour management in the classroom

• Are you both clear on your roles within the classroom, what does the teacher expect from you?

• Are the class rules clear and frequently referenced?

• Is there an understanding about how much work individual pupils are expected to complete?

• Have you both had behaviour management training (together), or shared what one of you learned?

• Do you model good social skills in how you address and respond to each other and to the children?

• Have you both read and understood the school behaviour policy?

• Do you share LOs before the lessons and go through the specific activities for each of you?

• Have you agreed on the ground rules for marking and correcting children’s work?

• How will you prevent pupils playing off one adult against another?

• Is there an understanding that different standards of behaviour may be expected from some individuals? (Little Johnny with SEBD may need to be tactically ignored, whereas little Max will need to be swiftly dealt with using the behaviour policy.)

• How will you support each other through difficult situations?

• Are you clear on the rules of confidentiality? (Will the teacher be happy with you discussing incidents with parents? You need to find this out very early to save any problems.)

• What are you expected to do if a pupil wants to leave the room?

• How will you signal each other that there is a problem?