Monday 14th December 2015- just 1 week into the new job and I discovered there was an event for Sheffield Hallam trainees that was to be hosted by us (CODE: me).

I was really excited about arranging the day, CPD is what I do after all and a chance to get my teeth into planning, organising and creating was absolutely something to look forward to- but where would I go for help from colleagues? I hadn’t met many of them yet and did I really want my first question to be, ‘What are you teaching on Thursday 7th January? Would you like some visitors? Yes, I know it’s the first week back…yes, I know we’ve just met… oh, my name’s Hannah by the way…’

Well a number of fabulous colleagues did come to my rescue that week and even this week too:

• Hadeel Mohammad
• Louise Nunn
• Chris Whittle
• Emma Noonan
• Michelle Howell (we haven’t even met yet!)
• Hellen Jordan

Each of these teachers are superstars!

The day began with defining what the ‘behaviour forum’ would be: mainly focused on behaviour but I wanted to ensure they got other things from the day too and that they didn’t just have a one-track focus for the entire day.

We discussed what teacher strategies lead to good behaviour- essentially, all of them. I shared that I felt the biggest is ‘rapport’. Each teacher has their own style but any who build positive working relationships can more easily navigate behaviour issues when they arise.

I shared with them ClassDojo– an app I have used since Nikki Gilbey shared it at a conference. The app can hold classes of students and positive/negative reward points can be dished out throughout a lesson.

They were then released to make notes and complete reflections on two different lesson observations.

This was the personal reflection sheet they completed. 

After lunch, we returned to discuss their learning and observations and this part was great for me in particular as not only did they get the chance to evaluate a variety of teaching approaches, I got the chance to hear more about teaching & learning at The Sheffield College, which can only be a good thing when I’m so new!

We then spent the afternoon observing another class and working through various activities related to behaviour management.

I introduced one of my favourite classroom strategies (learnt at a TeachMeet)- a game called ;’Would you rather?’ where the learners are given choices based on one option or another- you can begin with the silly ones- Would you rather have your right leg bitten off by a lion or your left arm bitten off by a crocodile? and then you can progress to the lesson related ones- Would you rather working in pairs or threes?  Would you rather draw your ideas or write them down?

In today’s case- Would you rather tactical ignoring or dealing with distractions confidently? Both groups selected ‘tactical ignoring’ so we watched this video and briefly discussed the content:

I’ve since found this video, which I really wish I’d found before the event:

We also looked at a range of common scenarios related to behaviour management (from the student who answers every question to racist remarks) and we discussed how we would deal with them/how we had dealt with them in the past. This proved useful for one group in particular, where strategies were thoroughly debated, discussed and shared- after all, each of us manages behaviour differently, just as we teach differently.

This fabulous behaviour blog from an ex-colleague, Katia Cole, pretty much saved my bacon on the day so thank you!

http://behavereadingcollege.blogspot.co.uk/

We moved through a few other resources and links before discussing the power of Twitter for CPD- none of them were particularly using it yet and I tried to persuade them otherwise- hopefully they’ll appear soon on #ukedchat, #ukfechat and/or #behaviourchat

Many of them proceeded to ask for lots of ideas on a range of aspects of teaching and learning so links and resources to explore have been emailed.

Click here to access the slides (and all of the other links)

I’m really looking forward to receiving the completed evaluations for the day.

The day was great for me because we could have conversations about Teaching & Learning but I could also talk about The Sheffield College as somewhere I now work- nothing like that to help you settle into a place!

A final thanks must go to James from reception who carted one trainee around the building whilst I was getting lost elsewhere- I have learnt to leave my mobile number with you now as well as room numbers! 🙂

This ‘Behaviour Management is an emotional issue‘ booklet was given out to all trainees who attended Sheffield Hallam University on the Friday to reinforce learning that had taken place in schools and colleges in the area on the Thursday.