A new attitude to behaviour

Lovely day today. Partly because school is always nice when you go back - all your kids and colleagues ask how you are and what you've been up to and so you feel missed and thus a little bit special.

But more so because I decided that I was gonna implement some of that behavioural theory and see what happened. Obviously it's a little late in the day to do this, but whatever.

Basically I read Assertive Discipline - a book my HoD recommended and which is really quite good. Very Americanised and focused on the idea that behaviour needs to be taught. At first I thought this was silly, but actually this makes perfect sense. Of course we have to teach behaviour. If you're not clear about what you want your kids to do and how you want them to behave, then they have no idea and so choose to do whatever they want, which is no doubt what you least want them to do. Assuming they can behave i.e read your mind is just downright idiotic. I have seen the light.

The system is fundamentally based on three things:

1. rules
2. rewards (positive recognition)
3. consequences

If you consistently apply these three things, then kids will respond and behaviour (and thus attainment) will improve. Now as I've only been doing this for one day, and tomorrow's my last day of school before the summer (did I hear a woooohooo? Oh yes I did!) I can't really properly evaluate the system. But I tried really hard to maintain it all day and I'm still smiling, so maybe there's promise there.

In other news, we had a staff meeting today. Enough said.

One daaaay!