How to Deal With a Badly Behaved Child
Throughout the course of the school year, teachers all over the country have to manage an entire classroom of children with an even bigger variety of personalities and temperaments. If we work to the law of averages, each class will no doubt have two or three students who are difficult to handle, and from behavioural to emotional issues, these children will need extra focus and attention.
Ultimately, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to make sure they know the child’s history so they can tailor resources to forward their education, and these actions may be the catalyst that helps to restore peace and calm to the classroom. Some children need that extra push however, and control of the classroom is one of the most important factors that can influence. Above all else, a teacher cannot control a class without discipline, so if you’re having problems managing your pupils, read on for some helpful hints and tips.
Record the Bad Behaviour
If you have a student with behavioural issues, your first point of call should be to inform the head teacher and school councillor – you should never deal with these situations on your own. Evidence of bad behaviour should always be documented just in case you have to write a letter of disciplinary to parents. Doing this will keep parents informed of their child’s progress as well as highlighting the ways you have tried to rectify the situation.
Some teachers wait until they have lost their temper with misbehaving students before they contact the parents, however this is bad practice. Parents should be notified at the first signs of trouble, and also kept informed of each attempt to improve the child’s behaviour. Teachers must also think about the other students in the class, as it’s untimely their education that is being disrupted.
Create a Behavioural Plan
Students need structure in their lives, and this also applies to their behaviour and attitude in school. If you have a pupil whose behaviour is unacceptable, you might want to try and create a behavioural plan to track the progress of their behaviour. For a behavioural plan to be successful, both student and teacher must create goals to improve classroom behaviour, and then identify ways these goals can be achieved. By working towards a common target, both student and teacher will be able to track the progress in improved behaviour; you may even want to implement a reward system every time a goal is achieved.
Communication
A teacher needs to be in continuous communication with their students in order to determine whether or not a pupil’s behaviour is disrupting the learning process. It can be tempting to just ignore problem students and continue teaching the rest of the class, however this has the potential to backfire. Ignoring the disruptive student might cause them to act-up even more, so instead of shutting a child out of class events, it’s best to continue including them in all activities. If the disruptive behaviour still continues, threaten to involve the head teacher and their parents in future discussions.
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This guest submission was contributed by Lloyd on behalf of Innova Solutions.