Behaviour Week 1 | Module Overview

Duration: 40 minutes

Ms Foden is starting a new year at school. She wants to create an effective learning environment for all of her pupils but worries that she may find it difficult to get some pupils to listen, work independently, or show sufficient respect in the classroom. What does an effective learning environment look like, and where should she start in building one?

2. Key Idea

Creating a predictable and secure classroom environment, managing pupil behaviour and holding high expectations all contribute to more successful learning.

3. The Classroom Environment and Pupil Learning

Effective teaching entails improving pupil achievement, in terms of both academic outcomes as well as other outcomes that matter to their future and success (Coe et al., 2014). Improving pupil achievement means generating a lasting change to pupils’ capabilities or understanding. Pupil behaviour, the learning environment and how teachers manage these, all play a critical role in improving pupil learning.

The learning environment or classroom ‘climate’ is a result of multiple factors, such as (Coe et al., 2014):

• Teacher expectations.

• The relationships between teachers and pupils.

• How the teacher manages the classroom.

There is strong evidence that certain teaching approaches lead to better pupil behaviour and create a more effective learning environment (IES, 2008).

The most effective learning environments are those that are predictable and secure, where pupils are responsive to the teacher (IES, 2008), and where pupils feel a sense of connection to their school, peers and teachers. Such classroom environments also contribute to a positive school culture (Chapman et al., 2013). Classroom environments like these are good for all pupils, but particularly those with special educational needs (Carroll et al., 2017).

In general, pupils are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn (Willingham, 2009), so common approaches are likely to be effective in improving pupil behaviour. But this must be balanced with the need to match teaching and classroom management to individual pupil needs (IES, 2008). Providing additional support can be particularly beneficial to pupils with specific barriers to learning (Carroll et al., 2017).

In addition to improving pupil behaviour, over time effective learning environments can produce a range of important benefits, including:

• Pupil-teacher relationships: Positive relationships and pupil perceptions of their teacher are based on repeated interactions over time (Wubbels et al., 2014). Being responsive to pupil needs, including considering and seeking to understand their feelings, can help build strong teacher-pupil relationships.

• Pupil attitudes to learning: Pupil perceptions of school are shaped by teacher-pupil interactions and the goals, values and behaviours of classmates (Rathmann et al., 2018).

• Pupil wellbeing: Pupils who perceive that their teachers are in control of the class and are able to include them in activities are also more likely to feel satisfied in life and have better school outcomes (Rathmann et al., 2018).

• Wider outcomes: In addition to generating high academic outcomes for pupils, effective environments can also improve wider outcomes such as university entrance and graduation rates, higher wages, and lower chances of becoming pregnant as a teenager (Chetty et al., 2014).

4. Effective Behaviour Management

5. Behaviour that Fosters Effective Learning

In the second half of the Behaviour strand, we will explore ways that teachers can foster effective learning. This part of the strand has lots of connections with the Instruction strand. Evidence suggests that there are several specific ideas and practices that teachers can use to generate behaviours that further foster effective learning in the classroom. These include:

• Guided instruction: Pupils learn best when they build on what they already know, and when teachers guide them clearly and directly towards what they need to know – an approach sometimes referred to as ‘explicit instruction’ (Coe et al., 2014). This is in contrast to less guided instruction, where pupils are left to ‘join the dots’ or discover things themselves. Once a teacher has established their classroom expectations, maintaining good pupil behaviour while adding to their teaching repertoire requires effective instruction. There are links with the Instruction strand later in behaviour.

• Practice: Getting pupils to think about and practise expected behaviours, by guiding them and reinforcing desirable behaviours, can foster positive changes in pupil behaviour change over time (IES, 2008). Guided practice can develop pupil metacognition linked to specific tasks, and practice can also develop pupils’ capacity to self-regulate their emotions, which can support pupils to be more successful and independent over time (EEF, 2017).

• Holding high expectations is one particularly important yet hard-to-pin-down part of creating an effective learning environment. When we talk about teacher expectations we mean: the beliefs that teachers hold and the messages that they communicate regarding what their pupils are capable of, both in terms of behaviour and learning. In turn, this influences the levels of classroom challenge and support that teachers provide (Coe et al., 2014). Inadvertently communicating low expectations can lead to a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, where pupils behave and learn in line with what the teacher expects rather than what they are capable of (Murdock-Perriera et al., 2018; Tsiplakides & Keramida, 2010).

6. Nuances and Caveats