Ask any class teachers - old hands and NQTs alike - what they learned about behaviour management in the earliest days of their career, and there’ll be no shortage of cautionary tales. For instance, one teacher-turned-journalist I could mention (and any speculation about his identity is forbidden) got more than he bargained for on his first attempt to teach design and technology to a lively group of Year 4 pupils.

After a long-winded preamble about health and safety issues, a small handful of pupils eventually set to work to build a Viking longboat while the rest of the class got on with jobs in more familiar curricular territory.

For a time it all went swimmingly. But after some close monitoring of this new work by the teacher, other groups soon needed his attention. It was only when teacher moved away that one mischievous young lad, perhaps inspired by all those Tom and Jerry cartoons he’d seen in the holidays, decided that using a twist drill to bore into softwood was all very well, but it might be much more fun to try it out on one of his classmate’s buttocks while his companion had bent over to tie his shoelaces.And what a commotion ensued.

Thankfully, the offending instrument caused no more than a minor cut and bruise to the unfortunate fellow’s backside, although in the process it had also made fair progress through a rather natty pair of Levi’s and some equally smart Calvin Klein underpants. Certainly, it’s at times like these that one appreciates supportive parents.“I’ve something to tell you, Mrs X, please have a seat... although your darling young son here might prefer to remain standing...”

All over the UK just now, newcomers to the profession will be going through their own parallel nightmares and that truly unenviable quest to find the optimum methods for dealing with unruly pupils, for asserting their presence in front of the class and remaining in secure control of their pupils against considerable odds.

Janet Lewis, who began teaching in a south London primary school, recalls how she was much troubled at one point in her teaching career by a pupilwho had special needs and an equally special talent for musical perfomance.

“I taught one young girl who had a lot of’issues’, but I have to say that she also had an excellent singing voice,” she says. “The problem was, she’d usually make the most use of it during the literacy hour. I’d be trying to get the reading groups sorted out and assign different tasks, and she’d suddenly break into a rendition of Hot Chocolate’s“You Sexy Thing”. Try as hard as I might, she simply wouldn’t co-operate at all - and at that point in my career I just didn’t have a clue about how to handle a situation like that.

“At first, I used to send another pupil off to the deputy head with a note, and the deputy would come along and take this young girl out of the class and talk to her for a while. It was just awful - and it made me feel quite useless.

“After a while, though, I began to get to know her better and I was able to draw up rules and set up a system of boundaries, rewards and sanctions. In that particular case, I knew it was never going to be easy, but as time went by I became more and more confident that I knew how to handle the situation for the best.”

Whatever the tutors, mentors and manuals tell you on the subject of managing behaviour, it seems there’s just no substitute for experience. Certainly, Rebecca Wozencroft would agree. She has been teaching for nine years now,but she still remembers with horror her initiation into what is probably the most daunting aspect of the teacher’s job.

“In my NQT year, I had the child from hell,” she says.“I had a poor relationship with that child’s parents too. Indeed, it got so bad that other children’s parents were beginning to talk about sending their children to another school because they just couldn’t bear their children being in the same class as this child.

“It became a daily battle of trying to deal sensitively with this child’s extreme attention-seeking behaviour while trying to settle the rest of the reception class into their first days at school. It went on and on, and I thought that this was just how it was. One day, after an emotional confession to the headteacher that I thought I just wasn’t cut out to do the job, I was offered a lifeline in the form of a lovely lady from behaviour support services who sat me down and discussed different strategies I could use. Many of the suggestions seemed obvious, but the most useful thing she gave me was the confidence that I was a good teacher who just needed advice where I lacked experience. Even now, nine years later, I know there’ll be situations that even experience can’t prepare me for. I’ll never know it all and I’ll never stop learning.”

A salutary lesson indeed. So if you find yourself reaching the absolute limits of your patience round about now, it may help to bear in mind that you are by no means on your own. Indeed, it is clear that anyone who has ever joined the profession has been there too.

LEARNING THE HARD WAY

Matt Bevan, NQTat Beechwood primary school in Woodley, Reading

* Start off firm and fair and try not to be too nice, It’s easier to loosen the reins than it is to tighten them. Make sure you are in control of learning, not them.

* Have a set of progressive sanctions in place that they know about and stick to them. There’s nothing worse than threatening to keep a child in at the end of a lesson and then letting them out.

* Praise good work and behaviour early on - everyone likes praise.

* Try not to be confrontational. Children don’t like to be backed into a corner, so always give them an opportunity to redeem themselves.

* If you get the majority of the class on your side, individual bad behaviour will be easier to deal with. Children like an audience, but if the audience is on your side, your job will be a whole lot easier. Sometimes it’s best to deal with individuals out of earshot - in other words, no audience.

DEMOCRACY RULES, OK?

Tina Hamer, GTP trainee at The Howard school, Rainham, Kent

I told all my classes that I didn’t have any rules and that they had to make their own. In a quick, punchy way I went round the class and demanded a rule from every pupil. I thus managed to get some 30 rules which were just the sort I might have made myself. Then I told them that they had to think of two sanctions and that I would provide a third myself. We had a vote on the most popular in each case. As a first sanction, most opted for a verbal warning, and as a second that students should stand at the front of the class facing the wall with hands on heads. The third sanction (mine remember!) was to phone home. Some asked why it couldn’t be detention, but I said,“No way, I’m not wasting my own time.”

So far, the system has worked extremely well. I’ve used it in key stage 3 and Year 10, but not in Year 11; these pupils love to squeal on their mates. If someone talks over me, I say something like,“Ooh, do you want me to sanction him for you?” And of course, they all say“Yeahhhh!” I haven’t had to phone home once yet for behaviour, but I always call home if I don’t get a piece of homework in. Word soon gets around that they can’t mess about.

KEEP YOUR VOICES DOWN

Emma Jones, Year 4 teacher at St Edward’s first school in Cheddleton, Staffordshire

* For the first few weeks, you should be very firm but fair to earn the children’s respect.

* Don’t shout as this just increases the acceptable noise level in the classroom. Be calm and quiet and the children will copy you.

* Always choose children who are displaying good behaviour and give them lots of attention for this - the others will soon follow suit.

* On the first day, agree a list of classroom rules and display them as soon as possible.

* Emphasise to your pupils that they have to make choices about the correct way to behave, and always encourage them to accept responsibility for their actions.

DON’T SMILE UNTIL XMAS

Tessa Bates, NQT at Clacton county high school, Clacton, Essex

I’ve realised that what works for some classes doesn’t work for others. All teachers are different and all classes are different, so it’s a case of trial and error. These tips have worked for me.

* With a child intent on disruption, simply say,“Thank you for your comments. Let’s discuss them after the lesson.” This leaves pupils unsure about whether they’re going to be kept in detention or for how long.

* Draw a simple graph on the board and plot a behaviour line as the lesson progresses. Make it clear that if the line falls below a certain point, they will be kept behind.

* If the class is continually chatting, walk around the room rewarding with a sweet those who are behaving. Others will soon want a’treat’ too, and will do what’s needed to get it.

* If the class is not co-operating, announce that the lesson is over and that they will sit in silence for the remaining time. Anyone who talks gets detention. Keep it going until the end if you’re brave enough. (I once kept it going for 15 minutes). The kids get very uncomfortable just sitting there.

* Write names on the board - those who will leave on time and those who won’t, but don’t mention which group is which. Leave them to work out the consequences of their behaviour.

* Write a number on the board. Is it the minutes they’ve wasted or the time they’ll be staying behind? Keeping them in the dark about this makes them curious and self-reflective.

* Red CardYellow Card. Write these words on the board and put names beneath each to represent first and second offence. A name on the red card list means a detention. Add a list called“goal” to represent good work and behaviour.

* You’ve probably heard the expression,“Don’t smile until Christmas”. And there’s a lot to be said for it. Once you’ve lost control in a class, you will never get it back - and that can make teaching practice an absolute nightmare.

GET THE RED CARD OUT

Siobhan Jacks, NQT in secondary science at Our Lady Queen of Peace high school, Skelmersdale, Merseyside

I’ve used the yellow cardred card system with a Year 9 group. They get a red card for a second bookable offence such as talking when asked not to, being out of their seats, disturbing another pupil and so on. This means they have to stay at the end of the lesson or come back at break, lunchtime or at the end of the day to finish off their classwork. If pupils continue to be disruptive, they get a red card, which means that they move out of the lesson. I usually get them to work next door with my head of department, and this also means that they get an automatic after-school detention for half an hour.

The pupils are football mad, so it seems to have worked really well. We have a league table showing how many times people have been booked and sent off. Those who manage a lesson without being booked get a Player of the Match award for good behaviour, or for good work. Ten of these awards means they can have a treat. Usually, the threat of a yellow card settles a disruptive pupil quickly and they all enjoy being a Player of the Match.

It also means that you just need to hold up a card, rather than having to shout and they know straight away what it means. Monitoring who’s been booked and sent off is an excellent way of keeping track on behaviour patterns and very useful for parents’ evenings and for providing information for heads of year.

THERE’S A TIMER AND A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING

Nathan Davies, GTP trainee at John Bunyan junior school, Braintree, Essex

It’s too easy to go into a classroom wanting to be liked by the children, but you should aim to win their respect by being firm but fair. You can be more informal later when the boundaries have been set and recognised.

Thankfully, even though I’m a trainee, I’ve found it possible to use strategies outlined in the school behaviour policy to combat unwanted behaviour in my classroom. It’s important that children see that you have the authority to carry out such actions. I think children instinctively look for adult attention and if they see that they can get it from positive behaviour, they’ll be more likely to continue down that route.

I’ve found it very useful to follow the school guidelines quite closely because children are already familiar with these. If you’re too severe or too lenient, or deviate too much from what they’re used to, they will become confused. I think watching how other experienced teachers deal with behavioural issues is one of the best ways of learning.

I’ve found that a calm approach really helps, although I do have a lot of chatty children and I find that they are sometimes difficult to settle in that period just before hometime. Recently, I used a simple stopwatch in class when the noise levels were beginning to get too high. All the waiting time on the stopwatch represented the time they would have to stay behind at the end. It seemed an open, fair and honest way of keeping down unreasonable levels of noise.