Low Level Disruption

2

October 22, 2015 by dragonflytraining

Written by @Alan_Jervis

‘Jamie was in a mood today, he told me to **** off’; high level disruption or low level disruption? I am defining this one as high level today, but I have heard some teachers say it is low level in their schools. Some teachers now accept disruption as part of their lessons. A survey of 1048 teachers by YouGov found that 20% of teachers ignore low level disruption and just keep the lesson going. This research discovered that about 10 minutes of each sixty minute lesson is lost to students ‘messing about’.

An astonishing 38 days a year is lost to student’s disruption. A more detailed YouGov report found that teachers identify disruptive behaviour as

• Students disturbing other children (38%)
• Students call out (35%)
• Students do not get on with their work (31%)
• Students do not have correct equipment (19%)
• Students purposely make a noise (19%)
• Students answer back (14%)
• Students use mobile phones (11%)

Sir Michael Wilshaw has stated ‘I see too many schools that have head teachers blurring the lines between friendliness and familiarity – and lose respect along the way’. About 80% of teachers use the school’s behaviour policy to tackle disruption and 90% of teachers say they supplement it with their own behaviour management strategies. A worrying 17% of teachers believe that their school’s behaviour policy is unhelpful and only 1/3^rd of secondary teachers said that the head teacher supported teachers in managing behaviour.

Some parents believe that schools do not work hard enough to identify weak teachers. They also desire greater formality in schools.

Here are a few suggestions to remove this disruption.

1. Classroom routines and protocols to promote high expectations and make students feel secure in your classroom
2. The ‘half glass full’ teacher will help to promote positive attitudes to learning
3. Use N.L.P systems to impose powerful logical techniques to get students to conform
4. High expectations are not enough. They need to share with students in a consistent and assertive way.
5. Do not allow students to deviate you away from your prime directive. Some students are highly skilled in such manipulation
6. Your behaviour management toolkit needs a plan A, backed up with a plan B, C, D, E and F. What works with Jimmy on Monday may not work on Friday. The greater your arsenal of behaviour management methodologies the better.

If you would like a day crammed full of ideas to reduce low level disruption then please attend my Removing Low Level Disruption course. Details on dragonfly-training website under behaviour management hotel courses (dragonfly-training.co.uk)