YOUNG CHILDREN AND CLASSROOM BEHAVIOUR: needs, perspectives and strategies. By Sue Roffey and Terry Reirdan. David Fulton pound;15. WE CAN WORK IT OUT: what works in education of pupils with social emotional and behavioural difficulties outside mainstream classrooms. By Paul Cooper. Barnado’s pound;15. CHALLENGING BEHAVIOURS IN MAINSTREAM SCHOOLS: practical strategies for effective intervention and reintegration. By Jane McSherry. David Fulton pound;15. SUPPORTING CHILDREN WITH BEHAVIOUR DIFFICULTIES: a guide for assistants in schools. By Glenys Fox. David Fulton pound;14. IMPROVING BEHAVIOUR AND RAISING SELF-ESTEEM IN THE CLASSROOM: a practical guide to using transactional analysis. By Giles Barrow, Emma Bradshaw and Trudi Newton. David Fulton pound;14.
Improving behaviour in schools is a hot political issue. Just look at the plethora of guidance from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Department for Education and Skills and the Teacher Training Agency over the past few years. It is not surprising that teachers and teaching assistants are keen to know what works.
These books contain plenty of useful suggestions, but they also risk making pupils passive recipients of an off-the-shelf strategy. Pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) respond, like all children, to those who approach them with a willingness to understand and accept them.
Sue Roffey and Terry Reirdan give a useful overview of some possible causes of such difficulties among young children in primary schools, and some strategies for responding at a whole-school and an individual level. The paucity of research evidence and sources may not trouble the reader who is looking for ideas that work.
Those looking for a more thorough and evaluative account of SEBD strategies that have been used over the past 100 years may find We Can Work It Out a better option. Paul Cooper’s review of what works in educating such pupils outside mainstream classrooms makes compelling reading. It is a must for anyone doing research or MA dissertations in this area. His breadth of knowledge is impressive, and his review of the various approaches reminds us that nothing is new in this field and that different approaches can work in different situations for different reasons.
He concludes, controversially, that there is a continuing need for non-mainstream provision due to the alienation and unmet needs of so many young people.
Jane McSherry provides a structured approach to reintegrating pupils with SEBD into the mainstream. The appendices contain tried and tested pro formas and checklists that will enable teachers and assistants to analyse pupils’ needs, identify targets and measure progress.
Teaching assistants and newly qualified teachers are the target audience of Glenys Fox’s practical and well-written book. The action boxes, which set tasks for readers to analyse their situation and reflect on the main points, are useful.
Improving Behaviour and Raising Self-Esteem in the Classroom is inspiring. It gets close to the origins of SEBD through its emphasis on the quality of transactions that occur daily in schools.This book does not focus on problems with teachers or pupils, but looks at wider political and cultural factors and their influence in schools.
As a teacher in Coventry, Iadmired those students who rejected what Cooper refers to as a “Faustian pact” to “endure the dehumanisation and alienation they experience in order to achieve test results and examination passes”. Unlike Cooper, I feel that we need SEBDpupils in the mainstream in order to learn from them how to meet the needs of all pupils. Perhaps if we listened to the screamers instead of trying to shut them up with stickers, stamps, sanctions, targets, medication (the list is endless), we might learn something important about what it means to be human.
Hilary Cremin is a lecturer at the Centre for Inclusive and Special Education Research (CISER), Oxford Brookes Universityl See resources review, page 23
