Working with a class or an individual student who's bringing behaviour challenges and the whole situation's making you, as a teacher, feel stressed and drained. Like, there's just nothing that works to improve things. Like, the kids are getting away from you, and you're not sure what to do next, you're stuck, then keep listening because in this week's School Behaviour Secrets, I'm gonna give you one important change to get you unstuck and making progress with your students again. Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My cohost is Emma Shackleton, and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents, and, of course, students when classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're gonna share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs, whole school strategy, and more, all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the School Behaviour Secrets Podcast. Hi there. My name's Simon Currigan, and welcome to this week's School Behaviour Secrets. It's a Quick fire episode this week. That's where because it's half term where we're teaching, it's my chance really to share something new or something different that I think is important to think about before we come back next week with a regular episode. And this week, I'm gonna give you one important change to make if you're currently stuck with a difficult class or perhaps as a child bringing a challenging behaviour into the room when you're struggling to make those connections with them and move things forward in a positive direction. So make sure you keep listening for that. If you're finding these episodes helpful or useful, definitely like and subscribe to the podcast. When you do that, it prompts the algorithm to let other teachers, school leaders, and parents just like you know about the information we're sharing on School Behaviour Secrets. If you find this episode helpful as well, we've also got a free resource that complements it really, really well. It's called the Classroom Management Score sheet, and it's a checklist of things that you're doing or not doing in the classroom that all have an impact on classroom behaviour. So it might be things about the environment or the lesson structure or the way you're using your voice and the way you present They all come together to have an impact on the way that the whole class behave and react. It's a completely free download. You can get it from our website. I'll put a direct link in the show notes. All you have to do is click on this episode in your podcast player and click right through. It's completely free, and I've seen it used over and over in schools to have a real impact on those tricky classes. So if you're struggling to reach a class or an individual student, it's really really hard. I can tell you I've been there. It can feel like you're sort of spiraling downwards. You can feel the stress building because you wanna be successful for the kids and you want the kids to be successful. So what we have to do is we have to think about our mindset because when you're in that downward spiral it's hard to see a way forward. So I want to introduce you to a concept called the locus of control. So there are 2 locuses of control or loci of control, you can have an external locus of control, and that's where you feel like control of events is external, it's outside. So you feel like things are happening to you and then the opposite obviously of an external locus of control is an internal locus of control. And that's where you feel like you are making decisions, you are making change, you are having an impact. So let's think about how that applies to a situation where we might be working with a tricky class or a student who's bringing significant SEMH needs into the classroom and it's it's hard to find the right approach to support them. Well, if you have an external locus of control, if you think control the situation is outside of you, then it's very easy to quickly start feeling victim, like things are being done to you, like the class is in control. And when you're in there, it can feel like there's there's no way out. And the result of that is you might feel depressed, you might feel helpless, or you might feel low, like the situation is just sliding away out of your control, events are happening to you, and you're not having the impact that you want. On the other hand, if you've got an internal locus of control and you're struggling with a tricky class then you will feel like you still can have an impact. You'll be looking at the things that are within your control and you'll be feeling like you can still make meaningful changes that can get that class moving in the right direction. So the important thing is if you're struggling to reach a class or an individual student, what we have to do is make an intentional gear shift. We have to make the change, the intentional change to make sure we are thinking about having an internal locus of control. We are recognizing the changes that we can make that will have a meaningful impact on the progress and the success of our class. Now that's easy to say, but it's harder to do especially, you know, when you've been battling with a class for maybe weeks or months and you just feel like you're not getting anywhere. But making that mindset shift is the first step to actually having the impact that you're looking for. And there are always things that you can change that will have an impact. So let's imagine you've got a really difficult class, they find it really hard to sit still, they don't gel, they find it hard to focus for even 20 minutes on a task before they're off task and talking to each other, and then you get silly low level behaviours happening. Once we've made that decision to switch to having an internal locus of control, we're gonna focus on the things that we can change. We're not going to focus on the things that are beyond our control. So we've got a bunch of kids here who just don't get on socially, they just don't gel. Well, there's probably not a lot we can do in the short term about their social skills. Perhaps you're in secondary and they're late to class, you know, otherwise 3 or 4 minutes late. The impact you can have there as an individual teacher is going to be fairly limited. You might think about their upbringing the way they were parented perhaps you think they should be more respectful. Well, there's not a lot you can do about that. You might worry about their current academic ability or you might focus on their inability to pay attention and do their best work. These are all things that we can do very little about in the short term and worrying about those actually keeps pushing us into this external locus of control. So we could do that and feel bad about the situation and feel like a victim or we could focus on the things that we can change. Okay? So here are some examples of things that we could change for this class. You could ask yourself, how do I show up in the first five minutes? Do I turn up with a positive attitude? Am I there making connections with the class? Am I welcoming them into the room? Am I being proactive? Am I starting conversations, or am I reminding them of what they need to do? How I show up in the first five minutes could make a huge difference, or am I being negative? Am I complaining to them as they walk through the door? Am I saying you shouldn't be late? Am I complaining about the fact that they didn't do their homework? Those first five minutes really set the tone for what's going to happen for the rest of the hour, and these are all things that we can change. Am I prepared to hit the ground running? Have I done all my lesson prep? When the children come through the door, am I ready to engage with them and all the resources are ready? Or am I sort of faffing about with a pile of photocopying at the back of the room with my back turned to them? These are things that we can change. We can change the environment. Here's just a few examples when the children walk in maybe you're playing calming music, some calming classical music. You're looking at music that doesn't have a drumbeat, doesn't have vocals to it, just some calming traditional classical music. It makes everyone just take a deep breath and feel like this is a productive learning environment. Have I got a task out ready for them? Are they walking into the room to nothing or is there a task out with instructions on the board sending the message that this classroom is a workplace and there's expectations for you to start working from the minute you walk through the door? You can look at your seating plan and think, am I using that really effectively? Have I been really intentional about the combinations of kids that I put together? Have I been intentional about kids that have a line of sight to each other? Because often children will make nonverbal signals during the lesson maybe if they can catch each other's eye they'll make each other laugh or make each other smile and throw each other off task. Have I sat them by their surname which is essentially a random seating plan? Or have I sat them by ability which on paper might sound like a good thing but in practice these kids are not getting on, they're talking, they're throwing throwing themselves off tasks. So if we've tried that approach and it hasn't worked, then it's time to change things up. We can focus on things like lesson structure. If this is a class that finds it difficult to focus on a task for 25 minutes then we can experiment with chunking where we break the task up so we might do a little bit of whole class input and then set them to a task for say 10 or 15 minutes and then we bring them back together and do some whole class talk and then we chunk it in the next part of the task? Am I using visual teaching methods instead of just giving them spoken instructions because they find it difficult to process a verbal? Am I actually harnessing their need to talk by using social groups and using social learning activities, using games to sort of engage and work with their enthusiasm? The other things we can look at are things like am I actively forming relationships with kids in that room? When they walk through the door do I ask them how they're doing? Do I look like I'm interested in their lives? Or do I give the impression as they walk through the door that they're just units of work to me and I'm here to deliver subject knowledge rather than to get to know them as human beings? Forming relationships is an incredibly powerful thing that's completely within our control. Am I using enough recognition and praise when the kids walk through the room or when they're on task and when they're focused? Recognition and praise when the kids walk through the room or when they're on task and when they're focused? Am I giving them recognition for that? Or am I just letting it slide and go unnoticed? Because the quantity of recognition, the quantity of praise that you use are always directly related to the quality of focus and attention and behavior in the room. Those are just some things off the top of my head that are completely within our control that we can improve on and change and work on that will all have an impact on the behaviour of the class. Now none of these things by themselves are going to be a silver bullet or it's incredibly unlikely that these things are gonna be a silver bullet. But what you'll often find is that when you start using say 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 changes instead of having one silver bullet, what you find is the answer is a 100 b b palettes. It's 7, 8, 9, 10 little changes that embedded over time have a real real impact. So if you're working with a tricky class or you're having difficulties reaching and connecting with a child who's got their own SEMH needs and that's resulting in kind of overwhelmed explosive behaviour, first off, don't take their behaviour personally, then make the decision to have an internal locus of control, focus on the things you can change, and then sit down with a piece of paper and start making a checklist right now of all the things that are within your control and then start tackling them one change at a time in a manageable sustainable way. It's kind of like the old joke what's the best way to eat an elephant? It's 1 bite at a time. What's the best way to tackle a really complex problem? It's one strategy at a time. And before you know it you're making changes and you'll find that you are having an impact on the situation again. You find that there will be changes that are positive. You'll feel back in the driver's seat and you'll feel better about your teaching and managing your class. And you know what? They'll thank you for it. That's all I've got for you today. I hope you found that useful. I hope if you're on half term at the moment, you're kicking back maybe enjoying a cocktail and going out in the sunshine. If you're not on holiday this week, my sympathies, but I hope you have a brilliant productive week with your students, and I look forward to seeing you next week on School Behaviour Secrets.