Stress is a part of life, right?
We all have to learn to deal with it.
Teachers, however, report high levels of stress and the attrition rate of new teachers is between 30-40% in the first five years.
While your employer has some responsibility for the health and safety, it is up to you to be accountable for your own wellbeing.
Teachers who adopt a positive approach to behaviour are more likely to have improved wellbeing through increased job satisfaction since they are not looking for a quick fix, but recognise that like all learning, we need long term solutions that take the needs of the student into account.
Planning does not just mean preparing your lesson content, but giving thought to how you want your students to behave before, during and after the lesson. Here are 5 simple yet highly powerful ways to create positive behaviour change with your students.
Student and teacher wellbeing are closely linked, and both impact student achievement and outcomes.
Adopting some simple practices in the classroom can improve the quality of life for both your students and yourself.
In schools where teachers don’t feel safe themselves, they are more likely to ignore poor student behaviour because they don’t feel supported or valued. Here are 7 ways that schools can work to change the culture of ignoring bad behaviour.
Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.
Many schools have a hierarchy of consequences that increase the level of punishment as the behaviour escalates. While that approach works with 75-80% of the population, a student with behaviour issues will not respond to increasingly negative penalties.
One of the key takeaways from the Teacher Wellbeing Workshop in 2017 to reduce workload, was prioritising tasks to use your time and energy more effectively. Deciding what tasks you need to do and what can be left undone can be very freeing. As can realising that you can say no: no to students, to colleagues, to parents, and (even!) no to your boss. Teachers are notorious for saying yes to far too many projects and then burning out. It’s a downward spiral.
Here is an outstanding list of Behaviour Management Resources for Teachers.
Your guide to solving behaviour problems in the classroom
A Year 5 boy is in trouble again. He continually refuses to do his work, he wanders around the room annoying other students by touching their work and talking about random topics, he talks to the teacher in a disrespectful tone and uses some low level swearing in class. When the teacher approaches him, he moves away and threatens to leave the room.