Managing Discipline in Schools

Sonia Blandford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN:
  9781138167292
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134686247
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The management of discipline is an essential element in educational practice, and at a time when teachers and managers are anxious about reported increases in violence and other forms of anti-social behaviour there's a need for practical guidance and a review of current thinking.
Based on the author's experience and research in a range of secondary and primary schools, this book presents accessible summaries of relevant legislation and guides the reader through management theories towards effective practice.
By placing the teacher at the centre of the management of discipline in schools and focusing on teacher and pupil esteem, a disciplined environment is not only desirable, but achievable too.
Written in an accessible style, the book;
* highlights the real problems and offers real solutions
* includes case-studies, recent research and legislation
* considers the classroom as well as the whole-school context
* describes the support networks within education
* provides a multi-agency approach.
This book is aimed at trainee and practising teachers, managers, and all those who work with children.

1
Discipline: Principles and Practice

Discipline and management are central to effective schools. All teachers are responsible, as professionals, for managing discipline in schools. Self-esteem and self-confidence are central to the management of discipline. Teachers need to have a sense of self-worth in order to recognise and meet pupil needs. Critical to practice is the relationship between teachers, pupils, parents (and families), senior management, governors, local education authority support agencies, educationalists and central government. The purpose of this book is to provide a framework for the management of discipline in schools that recognises both pupils’ and teachers’ needs.

As this book addresses a fundamental element of educational practice its intended readership encompasses all levels of the profession. At a time when teachers and other professionals are increasingly worried about reported increases in violence and other forms of anti-social behaviour in schools, there is a need to identify pupil and practitioner needs and relate these to management. Essentially, this book provides practical support for teachers, managers and other professionals involved in the management of discipline in schools. This chapter defines discipline in the context of educational theory and practice.

Definition

Defining discipline sounds easy. It is a term frequently used by practitioners, members of the school community and society in general. Whether there is a shared meaning is doubtful, as the range of behaviours and attitudes regarded as disruptive and requiring discipline is vast. In practice, any definition, and subsequent interpretation of discipline, will reflect the beliefs and values of all members of the school community. Where there is no shared understanding, tensions will exist and possibly crises will occur. There is a need for all members of the school community to identify pupil needs and have a shared understanding of discipline policy, procedures and practices.

Consistency is a fundamental problem in educational practice, as there are so many variables that influence teaching and learning. The wholly incorrect assumption that discipline implies ‘doing something to someone’ reflects the needs of those who like to control members of the school community. Effective, and lasting, discipline focuses on the ability of individuals to control themselves—self-discipline. If all members of the school community were self-disciplined individuals there would be very few, if any, problems.

So, if it is accepted that discipline is concerned with the development of internal mechanisms that enable individuals to control themselves, there will need to be agreed boundaries for attitudes and behaviour. The management of discipline in schools is the responsibility of all members of the school community. Individuals will therefore need to know and understand what is acceptable to other members of the school community. A discipline policy that clearly states the needs and expectations of pupils and teachers will provide the necessary framework for procedures and practices. As Chapter 10 explains, in order for there to be a shared understanding, all members of the school community need to participate in the decision-making process leading to the publication of a discipline policy.

The outward manifestation of the ability of individuals to either discipline themselves (self-control) or have discipline thrust upon them (control) is displayed in their attitude and behaviour towards others and their environment. The boundaries of acceptable behaviour should allow schools to function as harmonious and humane communities in order to create an environment conducive to serious learning (Docking 1980:12). Where boundaries are accepted pupils will have the self-control to manage their behaviour and attitudes without authority figures.

Pupils

Central to the management of discipline in schools is the ability of educational practitioners to identify pupil needs. The aim of schooling is to develop autonomous human beings who can fulfil their potential in the culture and society in which they live. Teachers therefore need to recognise individual strengths and weaknesses of their pupils. If pupils have low self-esteem this will impact on their ability to relate to members of the school community in a confident manner. Self-esteem and self-confidence engender respect. If pupils can respect themselves, they can respect others and their environment. The development of self-esteem in pupils will reflect their relationship with their peers, parents, family, teachers and other members of the school community. Teachers with low self-esteem will have difficulties developing the self-esteem of their pupils.

Pupils with low self-esteem may behave in an uncooperative manner. Their frustration and anger will cause them to behave irrationally, disrupting those around them. A wide range of behaviour may be considered to be disruptive. In practice, it will be problematic, inappropriate and disturbing to pupils, parents, teachers and other members of the school community. While it is the minority of pupils whose behaviour leads to exclusion (temporary or permanent) these children represent the tip of the iceberg. Pupils’ behaviour does not fall into precise categories of ‘normal’ and ‘disruptive’; it is on a continuum from cooperative to totally unacceptable. Very few pupils consistently occupy the same point on the continuum.

Inevitably, any definition of discipline is context-based, relating directly to each educational practitioner’s perception of pupil behaviour (Watkins and Wagner 1987). Pupils’ behaviour and practitioner expectations will vary depending on:

• time, according to the day of the week, subject, teacher and other pressures
• place, in the classroom, corridor, outside of the school gates, or at home
• audience, depending on informal and formal settings, for example, assembly or meal-times
• individual characteristics and labelling, pupils with reputations for disrupting lessons may be treated differently from their peers or an Afro-Caribbean pupil compared with a white middle-class pupil.

Whether a pupil’s action is perceived as disruptive will depend on who does it, where, when, why, to whom, in front of whom, and so on. The labelling of pupils whose behaviour is disruptive is wholly inappropriate and will damage their self-esteem. The ascribing of a label can be the cause of disruptive behaviour as the pupil attempts to maintain his/her status or title. A loud pupil will know how to behave in order to be recognised. Negative labelling will have negative results.

Pupils should be encouraged to take responsibility for their behaviour. Ultimately, pupils must learn to control themselves so that they can behave and work quietly even when a teacher is not watching them, this is what they must be able to do as autonomous adults. Teachers must provide opportunities for pupils to take responsibility for themselves and others through classroom and extracurricular activities.

Teachers

Teachers are often criticised for their inability to teach. Maintaining a pattern of behaviour that enables all pupils to learn and all teachers to teach will be defined, in practice, by a teacher’s ability to prevent disruptive behaviour in their classrooms. The majority of teachers have a fairly well-defined idea of the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour as agreed in their school’s discipline policy. However, there are a minority of teachers who are unable to either define or maintain these boundaries. The management of discipline in schools should not, as Walker (1989:174) describes, be a matter of ‘survival, the stuff of nightmares’. Teachers need the mechanisms and tools to manage discipline and, critically, they need support.

Management of discipline is central to effective teaching and should be central to teacher training. A teacher’s inability to control a pupil or class prevents the process of education and learning from happening. While higher education institutions have addressed the issue of classroom management in schools, there is still much to be done in defining the support systems that are available to practitioners, students and teachers.

Teachers should not feel isolated, and further training beyond qualification is required to provide the support necessary for teachers to be effective in the classroom. A teacher should be able to teach. While discipline is an integral element in teaching it should not dominate classroom practice. When teachers are unable to maintain discipline they should feel confident that support is available and will be provided. In-service training (INSET) that enables teachers to develop their knowledge and understanding of the nature of discipline and the management systems/support agencies available is critical to good practice in schools.

Teachers need to feel confident in their role as educators and be able to access and utilise the many agencies that exist to provide them with support. In the minority of schools, teachers are reluctant to admit that an individual or class is creating a problem that prevents them from teaching. In doing so the teacher is not meeting their own needs and, more critically, the needs of their pupils. Any admission should not be perceived as a confession of weakness; in practice, the identification of such problems reflects personal strength. The management of discipline in schools requires teachers to have knowledge and understanding of local education authority (LEA) support agencies and management teams whose job it is to deal with difficulties that arise. Practitioners need to have a shared understanding of their roles and responsibilities according to the school discipline policy, procedures and practices.

Teachers should be assured that support will be given if they are unable to deal with disruptive behaviour, for example:

• resistance to teacher direction
• argumentativeness or procrastination
• defiance, insolence and disregard for the teacher’s role
• frequent ‘low-level’ behaviours such as calling out, not listening to instructions or just talking.

Teachers who are successful at keeping order in their classrooms and meeting pupils’ needs are those who are skilled in preventing disruptive behaviour. This will be dependent on a number of factors, including:

• personality
• appearance
• communication skills
• teaching skills
• curriculum knowledge.

Inevitably, teachers will need support from others; they cannot be expected to work in isolation. Practitioners are mutually dependent on each other. Managing discipline in schools is a shared responsibility for which teachers need to develop a shared understanding.

Managing discipline in schools is critical to reducing teacher stress (Rogers 1996). Disruptive behaviour, poor working conditions, time pressures, poor school ethos, health and emotional problems all contribute to a teacher’s diminishing self-esteem, lack of confidence, and will impact on their ability to teach. Teachers and managers should aim to reduce stress levels wherever possible by creating a supportive and caring environment.

Management

School managers should aim to create an atmosphere whereby teachers are able to run organised and effective classrooms in which the abilities of individual pupils are given due opportunity for development, in which teachers can fulfil their proper functions as facilitators of learning, and in which children can acquire the techniques for monitoring and guiding their own behaviour (Docking 1980).

The general atmosphere and practices of schools can, and do, make a substantial difference to pupil behaviour and attitudes. Research (Rutter et al. 1979; Mortimore et al. 1988) has shown that a range of factors influence pupil behaviour:

• academic balance, appropriateness of the curriculum
• reward and punishment systems
• environment
• pupil responsibilities
• teacher modelling
• classroom management
• whole-school management
• support systems
• communication systems
• home-school relationship.

School managers will need to consider each of the above in relation to their own school. Good leadership and effective management are fundamental to effective schools. The need to provide a structure as a point of reference for both pupils and teachers is recognised by practitioners and researchers (Jones 1989). ‘Knowing that they are there’ enables teachers to concentrate on teaching and learning rather than discipline. Headteachers who know their staff and pupils are essential in the management of discipline in schools. However, the headteacher should not be seen as the ‘panacea for all ills’. A headteacher leads a senior management team, which, in turn, is responsible for middle managers and teachers.

In practice, effective headteachers are democratic, sharing in the decision-making of developing and implementing discipline policy, procedures and practices. They support, assist and coordinate the work of teachers, parents and education professionals to discover and meet pupils’ needs. Headteachers know that a great deal could go on in their school of which they would never be aware unless teachers and pupils felt confident to call on them to address problems and to make suggestions for changes.

Ultimately, headteachers are responsible for ensuring that all members of the community establish appropriate standards of behaviour in the school to which they belong. Managing discipline is at the root of managing the school as a community. Appropriate policies and structures need to be in place to facilitate this process.

Lea Support

The role of LEA support staff in relation to schools changed significantly with the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA). Practice within LEAs is varied and experience has shown that several have complex support structures that remain unknown to practitioners in schools. Central to the effectiveness of LEA support teams is their ability to communicate their role to classroom teachers.

Often the point of contact in schools is the special educational needs coordinator (SENCO). SENCOs are expected to identify and manage a variety of special educational needs. Special educational needs are defined by the 1993 Education Act as significant learning difficulties or impediments that prevent a pupil from accessing the same educational facilities and opportunities as others. A procedure is to be followed (see Chapter 2) if teachers are to receive support from other agents in the education of these children. Severe emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) are identified in the Code of Practice for special educational needs (DfE 1994a).

In practice, all teachers should have knowledge, and understanding of the Code of Practice as this provides a framework for recognising and managing pupils with behavioural problems. Rather than leaving the SENCO to deal with all pupils with behavioural and learning difficulties, teachers should consider their responsibilities to pupils in their classrooms. The Code of Practice also provides a framework for managing pupil behaviour prior to the pupil reaching special needs status. If teachers are to prevent pupils from being excluded they should work with support agencies in the management of discipline in their schools.

Headteachers and LEA agencies consider why, when the services of education welfare officers and educational psychologists exist, the number of children identified as being disruptive has increased? A key factor is that there are teachers who are unaware of the availability of such services until such time as their pupils’ behaviour is beyond their control. A greater understanding of the good practice that exists is required by both teachers and LEA support agencies. Knowledge of support agencies’ roles and responsibilities is needed if teachers are to develop the skills needed to manage discipline in schools. Prevention is better than cure.

The School Community

The behaviour of pupils in a school is influenced by almost every aspect of the way in which it is run and how it relates to the community it serves. It is the combination of all these factors which give a school its character and identity. Together they can produce an orderly and successful school.

(DES 1989:8)

A school should be central to its local community. In order to be so, schools have to become a community within a community. A school needs to develop an identity, one that reflects the values and beliefs of its members. The school environment is critical to the management of discipline. Schools need organisational structures, rules and aims if they are to be effective. All members of the school, as a community, should have shared participation in the creation of the ethos of the school. As active players in the daily life of the school, pupils, teachers, parents and support agencies need to relate to each other. The more isolated teachers feel within their community the more difficult the management of discipline becomes. The organisational structure of the school should reflect the psychological and sociological make-up of its community. All schools are different. All pupils have diffe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• A note on the text
• 1 Discipline: principles and practice
• 2 Government policy and legislation
• 3 Community
• 4 Management
• 5 Senior and middle managers
• 6 Classroom management
• 7 Support agencies
• 8 Alternative models
• 9 Good practice
• 10 Policy
• 11 Professional development
• 12 Self-evaluation
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index