Tom Bennett, TES behaviour expert and teacher, has been appointed as the government’s behaviour tsar (although he hates the term).
His role is to lead a new group to develop better training for teachers to tackle low-level disruption.
It comes as Ofsted claims that students messing about by swinging on chairs, playing with mobile phones or passing notes are losing up to an hour of learning time a day.
“I’ve been writing obsessively about the subject for almost a decade,” Bennett explains. Here we present just a small selection of his output - Bennett’s top ten behaviour blogs.
1.
What is the number one problem in education that no-one takes seriously? Behaviour. “I’d call it the elephant in the room, but the difference is sometimes people talk about elephants.”
2.
Shoot the elephant: The Ofsted report into low-level disruption. Read this if you want to find out the six habits of calm schools
3.
Can you motivate children by letting them pretend they are warriors using magic? Bennett considers an American teacher’s experiment
4.
Two schools bad, one school good. Ideas on how to get a true picture of how schools are coping: “Supply teachers are the best weather vane I’ve ever found for ranking schools’ behaviour,” he blogs. “Maybe Ofsted should just ask them”.
5.
“I once asked a class to help me create rules… they said they wanted fag breaks”. In which Bennett explains that teachers must set rules.
6.
Tough Young Teachers got Bennett speaking up for new teachers - the gauntlet that they have to run, and how schools should support them.
7.
Who could argue against guidelines on managing behaviour? Five misguided reactions - including why saying you misbehaved and still did ok, is not ok.
8.
The teachers who have been targeted, punched, stalked by children - how weak behaviour management systems let staff down. Bennett asks: When did we forget how to deal with bad behaviour?
9.
Why do some people in education hate good behaviour? Teachers and management need to reflect on whether their working methods provide the compost in which misbehaviour flourishes.
10.
How to solve the behaviour crisis. Twenty things you need to do to beat bad behaviour.
