Why behaviour management coaching could be a top priority for schools in 2024

This newsletter edition focuses on the ways in which a behaviour management coach can assist teachers enhance their behaviour management skills, ultimately bringing the focus back to learning for every student.

In the article, I argue the need to place emphasis on supporting teachers in the classroom now more than ever, especially given the current educational epoch where we are seeing some schools unable to fully staff themselves.

This year I am moving into education consulting and my goal is to partner with 10 schools to improve and enhance the behaviour management practice of the school's teachers. My sleeves are rolled up and I am ready to go. I can work with you and your school in person or online.

If you would like to know more or to engage with me further, get in touch. Let's make 2024 the year where we help each other to Lead Positive Classrooms .

The state of play

Professional learning on behaviour management is not new for teachers and many schools will offer it as term 1 commences.

When I was in school leadership teams, at the start of each year we made efforts to inform staff about our at-risk students and those who needed additional support in the classroom. We would then have collaborative discussions around how we, as a whole-school team, would support these students so that they could successfully achieve positive learning and well-being outcomes that year.

While these conversations are beneficial, there is also room for the provision of ongoing support for some teachers in the form of behaviour management coaching throughout the school year. Such coaching needs to be purposeful and contextual.

Why is behaviour management coaching necessary?

Last year, the OECD released their Education Policy Outlook in Australia report. While Australia’s school system is generally considered to be high-performing within the OECD, one of the most salient findings in this report was that Australia’s classrooms are among the least favourable in terms of disciplinary climate.

The report showed that Australian teachers feel less prepared than their peers across OECD countries to manage disruptive classroom behaviour, and, as a result, the declining disciplinary climate in Australian schools is considered to be a core driver of teacher attrition across the country. The OECD report also claims that by next year, Australia will have projected deficit of 4,100 secondary school teachers.

This is why schools might benefit from having a dedicated behaviour management coach attached to a staff member or multiple staff members throughout the school year. Coaches provide those they are working alongside with direction and support to accomplish their goals.?There is growing interest in coaching as a means of promoting the use of evidence-based practices in schools, including in behaviour management.

Four reasons why behaviour management coaching could be a top priority for schools in 2024

1. Behaviour management contributes to achieving the overall vision of the school

Most school vision statements focus on developing the whole child and are not confined to just cognitive-based outcomes. These vision statements posit that the purpose of schools extends well beyond the transmission of knowledge and into the realm of developing people who are capable of working with each other, as well as supporting each other in times of need.

For example:

Our vision is to empower students to acquire, demonstrate, articulate and value knowledge and skills that will support them, as life-long learners, to participate in and contribute to the global world and practise the core values of the school: respect, tolerance & inclusion, and excellence.

And another:

Our vision is develop students who are happy, confident, self-disciplined?and motivated risk takers who strive for excellence while having respect for one’s self and others. The?school seeks to engender a positive community spirit which encourages learning in a caring, family?atmosphere where children are the focus and individual needs are met.

The premise behind an educative approach to behaviour management is to equip students with the skills needed to rationalise the consequences (both positive and negative) of their behaviour for themselves and others in the future. Thus, providing behaviour management coaching to staff allows them to work towards the attainment of their school's vision - a focus on developing the whole child.

As a teacher's confidence with behaviour management grows they are able to better guide their students towards the development of the skills needed to be respectful and tolerant citizens capable of resolving conflict and working well with others.

For example, I have coached teachers on how to facilitate restorative justice conversations after behavioural incidents that have warranted further follow up. Coaching staff on how to hold restorative justice meetings has allowed the teacher to model to the student positive and constructive ways in which to restore relationships when there has been harm caused.

I don't know about you but I believe that this is a fundamental skill we should be teaching our students.

2. Behaviour management supports quality instructional practices

This one is a no brainer. A behaviour management coach can help a teacher develop strategies to bring students' focus back to learning in positive, constructive and educative ways.

Over time, mastering skills with behaviour management means that more time is spent on learning and less time is spent on managing off-task behaviours. Off-task behaviours might still occur, but the teacher is better equipped to deal with them quickly before they escalate.

One of the points that I make in my book, Leading Positive Classrooms , is that, as a first port of call, many off-task behaviours can be attended to by changing the way we deliver our instruction and/or learning tasks to students.

More often than not, making the task meaningful to the student increases their intrinsic motivation for mastery (see, for example, self-determination theory by Deci & Ryan, 1991, 1995), which acts as an excellent preventative measure to engaging in off-task behaviour.

A dedicated behaviour management coach can undertake classroom observations and then enter into dialogue with the teacher about the ways in which to enhance the learning opportunities for ALL students.

For example, the two might debrief together after a lesson and discuss the following questions related to a targeted student:

• Did the student understand the task? How do you know?
• Did the task build upon the student's prior knowledge in meaningful ways?
• Was the task within student's zone of proximal development?
• How did the student behave when the task was changed or adapted?

These dialogical conversations can help a teacher to understand how changes to their instructional practices influences the culture of the classroom , and, importantly, the behaviour of a targeted student or group of students.

3. Behaviour management allows teachers an opportunity to learn new skills and strategies in context

As the behaviour management coach and teacher(s) engage in dialogue together about what has worked and hasn't worked in a class, there can be guidance given on ways to build or maintain a positive classroom culture. The old adage of 'you don't know what you don't know' rings true here.

Hershfeldt et al. (2012) investigated the effects of behaviour management coaching across 42 Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports (PBIS) schools. One of the findings from this study was that teachers found it difficult to use frameworks like the ABC (Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence) framework for understanding students' off-task behaviour because they lacked the data collection and analysis skills in which to use the framework objectively.

With a behaviour management coach, though, the teachers were taught how to collect rich and complex qualitative and quantitative data, as well as how to analyse it so that they could make full use of the ABC framework to complete a Functional Behaviour Analysis (FBA). This is an exceptionally important finding to remember! Most schools do not have the time in which to develop teachers' skills with data collection and analysis related to students' behaviour, whereas a dedicated behaviour management coach can enhance the capacity of teachers to do this.

Most importantly, not all behaviour management strategies will work all the time, in every setting. There is no magic bullet.

A behaviour management coach can suggest alternate techniques that can expand a teacher's repertoire of enacting a contextually-relevant behaviour management approach - one that is focused on educative rather than punitive measures. Sometimes a slight tweak to our practice might be all that is needed to engage a student or a group of students with their learning.

A behaviour management coach can also be there as moral support for when things just don't work.

Believe me, I have been there. I have been one of those teachers who have gone home in tears because despite my best efforts I just haven't been able to crack the hard class that day.

Having a support person in your corner gives you the courage to get back up on your feet and do it all again the next day, equipped with the confidence to try something new.

4. Behaviour management contributes to teacher satisfaction and retention

Teachers' satisfaction increases when they are able to do the thing that want to do most - teach. If teachers spend 90% of their time feeling like they are 'taming lions' as one teacher put it to me last year, the likelihood of staying in the profession for an extended period of time diminishes.

A behaviour management coach can build teachers' professional capacity and this enables them focus more on teaching and learning, especially as they become more skilful and confident with behaviour management.

This is especially important for our graduate teachers. We want to keep graduates in the profession for the long game, and part of how we can do this is by getting around them and showing them support with improving their capacity to manage students' off-task behaviours. You just won't build those skills in a one-off PL. A dedicated behaviour management coach can ensure that your school's graduate teachers are given the best possible start in the profession

Three ways a behaviour management coach can support a teacher with behaviour management

Now that we have established four reasons why behaviour management coaching should be a top priority for your school in 2024, let us look at three ways a behaviour management coach can support you or other teachers in your school:

1. Classroom observations - a behaviour management coach has a unique point of view that can help teachers see solutions to behaviour management problems that they are otherwise unable to identify for themselves.

2. Specific goal setting and monitoring using data - a behaviour management coach can help a teacher or group of teachers to set realistic, meaningful goals related to improving their behaviour management skills. Furthermore, they can also assist teachers in learning how to collect and analyse data that will assist them in tracking the success of their goals.

3. Purposeful dialogue - a behaviour management coach can engage in dialogue with teachers based on "I noticed", "I wondered" and "I felt" statements. This professional dialogue can guide teachers towards accomplishing their behaviour management goals.

Conclusion

What I have attempted to articulate in Edition #3 of Leading Positive Classrooms is that schools have much to gain by engaging with a behaviour management coach, whether that be for one teacher or for a group of teachers.

Schools have much to gain by engaging with a behaviour management coach, whether that be for one teacher or for a group of teachers.

School culture is never static and a positive one is hard to maintain, especially as the school year goes on. Within the complexity of schools there is just simply not enough time for school leaders to devote enough time to the depth of coaching that is needed to ensure that positive classroom cultures are built and maintained.

In this regard, a behaviour management coach can act as an additional staff member - an impact player that comes off the bench to support your players (teachers and students) as the game goes on.

Work with me

As mentioned in the introduction of this newsletter, I am looking to partner with up to 10 schools this year to offer my services as a behaviour management coach. If you would like to know more or to engage with me further, get in touch with me by sending me a LinkedIn message.

Together, we can tailor a school partnership package to suite the needs of your school and the teachers therein. This might include:

• An initial whole-school report that takes stock of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your school's current behaviour management practices and structures
• Professional learning delivered to one or several teams of teachers
• Conducting observations of teachers' practices and students' behaviours
• Facilitating dialogical conversations with staff as part of a PLC cycle
• Running parent information nights on behaviour education
• Developing teachers' skills with data collection and analysis related to students' behaviour

I look forward to connecting with interested teachers and school leaders across Australia.

Thanks for reading Edition #3 of Leading Positive Classrooms!

Chris

The content of this article and much more is covered is covered in my book, 'Leading Positive Classrooms: Adopting an Educative Approach to Behaviour Management in Schools', which is available for pre-order using the link below:

https://ambapress.com.au/collections/coming-soon/products/leading-positive-classrooms

P.S. How does your school provide teachers with behaviour management coaching throughout the school year?