Teachers can read the following case studies from schools and teachers about their experiences adapting the curriculum:

He isn’t the only one to recognise how serious the problem is. In It grinds you down, a report published in 2018, the think tank Policy Exchange called for low-level disruption to be taken more seriously by the government. Because it often seems like less of a big deal, teachers are frequently uncertain how to respond to it - or even if they should. Lots of teachers, having had little training in managing behaviour, think they should ignore it, or laugh it off, or hope it goes away.”

I would personally also ask students to chant at points in time,” he says. “If there are three key pieces of factual knowledge you need your class to know, I’d get them to chant those definitions seven or eight times in that lesson. The more they verbalise it, the more likely it is to sink in.” Be unambiguous, so the student is aware of the expectations. Like punctuality: what does late mean? What will happen if they are [late]? What are the extenuating circumstances?” he says. If you’re interested in reading more about the research behind effective behaviour management, the following are worth consulting: The key promise was time – the most cited reason for why things don’t get done (or done well) in schools. New teachers would receive a two-year induction programme and an in-school mentor to support them; they would have a reduced timetable commitment, with time off to access relevant training; and the time off would also apply to their mentors. This additional time would have no implications for their pay progression.

There is also a need to make these approaches a habitual norm for the teacher so that they themselves do not suffer from cognitive overload. Her research suggests that other factors may also be at play. She investigated a range of possible influences on behaviour, including “pastimes such as screen use and extra-curricular activity; home-life factors, such as chaos; the children’s weekly sleep; and socioeconomic status”.This is clear, solid advice for anyone running a school or line-managing others in school. Unlike many of its competitors, it is mercifully free from any attempt to describe its author as an inspirational messiah, beloved by all. It eschews telling us how much the author loves children more than anyone else. And satisfyingly, it describes in simple terms how someone might create an environment that nurtures and teaches children as effectively as possible, by someone who has actually done such a thing. These kinds of things can be happening at the same time: they can also be dynamic, interactive and cascading. A child may have an issue at home which spills over into the classroom,” she says. Another commented: “It affects the whole class, because if you’ve got a question that you want to ask the teacher, and the teacher’s attention is being taken by someone who’s being disruptive, then nobody can really learn from that.” Teachers said it made a big difference to behaviour and reported that relationships with their pupils were much more positive. Researchers also found that pupils who were taught in the first year by a teacher who went through the programme were rated as less disruptive by their next teacher.

How do you know that the other 26 pupils in the room actually understand what’s being discussed? You need to ask them for the answer, too - you may hear the same thing repeated 30 times in a class, but that’s really important because you want to make sure everyone is engaging in the learning.” Bennett T (2017) Creating a Culture: How school leaders can optimise behaviour. London: Department for Education. In every class where there are some students causing disruption, there are one or two students looking at you pleadingly, like ‘Please, can you just deal with this so I can learn?’ You feel like you’re letting them down,” she says. Tom Bennett outlines that “it seems an odd thing to ask, getting students to practise entering the room, for example. But doing so makes it far less likely that anyone will misunderstand what you want. Many teachers forget that good behaviour has to be taught, just like any other part of the school syllabus. We wouldn’t expect students to innately know the boiling point of sodium (883°C), so why should we assume they know what we privately mean by good conduct?” When the students do not reach the standards that I expect I ‘teach’ them, I am sure many of us do, but if this is not a blanket approach by all staff the effect will be diminished. There is a way to enter a classroom and behave appropriately on a corridor and every student can do it irrespective of who they are. You don’t believe me? I managed to get my very lively year 9 class to line up outside M1 and walk quietly past reception as I led them to the sports hall. After October HT, this was initially loud and disrespectful, but slowly and surely this group got the message and by the time Christmas arrived they were as respectful as the quietest year 7s on their first day of high school. The admin staff, whose office is parallel to this ordinarily noisy walkway, even thanked me.

Your thoughts

So often I have been asked this question with a view to answer it in one way or the other. However, my approach is a balanced one, as a pupil needs to feel emotionally safe first before they are able to modify theirbehaviour. The 2018 Policy Exchange report, however, found the situation to be much worse: it reported that low-level disruption is a daily occurrence for 80 per cent of teachers. More than half of the teachers surveyed agreed the quality of young people’s education is affected by disrupted lessons, and 44 per cent agreed that low-level disruption prevents effective teaching and learning. Sallie Stanton, Director of Education at Bedford Free School, for example, explained that “it is difficult planning for breadth and enrichment when we can’t be sure what pupils will be able to do come September.”

Should you allow teachers to use sound professional judgement that is informed by evidence and experience, or is it better to drive staff with hard performance targets? ITT entry figures for this September show that a huge recruitment issue is not just brewing; it is here. The pandemic has fundamentally altered how people see work – their work-life balance, their sense of what they are worth and how much work they are prepared to do.It’s about recalibrating your expectations at those times, reinforcing what it is you want to be communicating. Sometimes you have to take a pause in the lesson, and retrain the pupils,” he says. Training has focused predominantly on pedagogy, activities, and attempting to measure progress. But these are all false proxies for learning.