Running the Room: The Teacher's Guide to Behaviour

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It’s all presented in a very amenable fashion. He is clear up right up front: “ None of this makes me any better than a good teacher in any school.” He also shares brilliant anecdotes from his time on the front line, like this one: Good behaviour is the beginning of great learning. All children deserve classrooms that are calm, safe spaces where everyone is treated with dignity. Creating that space is one of the most important things a teacher needs to be able to do. But all too often teachers begin their careers with the bare minimum of training – or worse, none. How students behave, socially and academically, dictates whether or not they will succeed or struggle in school. Every child comes to the classroom with different skills, habits, values and expectations of what to do. There’s no point just telling a child to behave; behaviour must be taught. Behaviour is a curriculum. This simple truth is the beginning of creating a classroom culture where everyone flourishes, pupils and staff. After reading the book, I am more confident that these routines support my students’ learning. I’m going to go further this term and trial practising the routines more regularly. So instead of going through them at the start of the term, going through them at least twice a term. The book emphasised that routines need to be taught, practised and re-taught BEFORE a problem occurs. Don’t wait for an issue to arise to re-teach a routine.

Luke was born and raised in Tasmania, Australia making the move to London in 2022. Luke developed a passion for the human body after several long term personal sporting injuries and this led him to pursue studies in Exercise Science and Physiotherapy.

Create a class culture where it is the norm for students to behave in a way that lets them and others learn. In many ways, there is nothing revolutionary here. What is important is the emphasis on behaviour needing to be taught, not told. Bennett maintains this is a systematic process like any other transference and retention of knowledge. He makes the allegedly intangible, tangible; asserting (correctly, in my opinion) that this approach takes the guesswork out of behaviour management and facilitates better learning for all. New teachers are far too often left to discover independently how to run the room, which leads inevitably to exhaustion and disillusion – and ultimately, poor retention of teaching personnel. They need to run the room… If the teacher does not run it, the students will, because power abhors a vacuum. And if you permit students to do as they please, then ask how you would have behaved in such circumstances as a child?” The book re-affirmed a lot of things I’m already doing and gave me new ideas to trial as a teacher and a school leader. Here are 3 things I’ve learnt from the book. 1. Routines, routines and routines Will studied Physiotherapy in Adelaide Australia and moved to London in 2023. Throughout his younger years, seeing the Physio for ACL and ankle injuries from basketball sparked his interest in the injury management and prevention. Being born in China and moved to Australia when he was eight, Will is also fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Be organised and plan ahead so that it is easy for students to behave and hard for them to misbehave. Adrian brings his amazing experience to The Running Room London. Having spent many years developing and mastering his craft as a physiotherapist at iMove Physiotherapy in Sydney.We must act respectfully towards the vast plurality of value systems from which our students emerge ... it does mean teaching them to appreciate that the classroom - your classroom - has its own culture, and that here, if nowhere else, these specific values and beliefs should be held, and demonstrated through behaviour. It is specific to the space in which you teach.' The premise was simple: could an individual from one area pass as proficient in another, as judged by an expert panel? A vicar 'became' a car dealer, a house painter a conceptual artist, a bicycle courier a polo player, and so on. I don't think they ever tried to turn someone into a teacher, but at the time I was waiting for that programme to be made. 'Running the room', is the title of Tom Bennett's new book ('the teacher's guide to behaviour'), and it would have been fun seeing the trainers preparing a total novice to ‘run’ a classroom. For experts, this is second nature; for anyone else, it can be a terrifying prospect: Before I go any further with this, the book emphasises that removal should not be done on an ad hoc basis and it should be an unusual event in mainstream classrooms. However, sometimes there will be situations where a student needs to be temporarily removed from the class and a removal strategy should be in place before it is needed. This is something I want to work on as a Head Teacher. Do I have an agreed process with the teachers I supervise for the unlikely event that a student needs to be removed from class so that all students, including the student being removed, can continue learning? When such an event occurs, the class teacher should not have to think about who and where the student is to be sent to, what the student should be doing while removed from class, what happens after the removal, etc. It is important that students should know this process before they are removed (which hopefully will be never). Throughout, the concept of firefighting is used to demonstrate the need to make behaviour strategies preventative – to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to poor behaviour. The unifying thread of the text is that prevention is better than cure – that “a fence at the top of a cliff is preferable to an ambulance at the bottom”. The book talks a lot about how people’s behaviours can be different when they are by themselves and in different group situations. A classroom and a school are large group situations and teachers need to create and sustain a culture where it is the norm to do the right thing.

Some common behaviour myths' include: 'Some people have got it' ('the sin of essentialism - that teaching is an innate gift rather than something can be learned') and 'Kids need love, not boundaries' ('They need both. Boundaries without love is tyranny but love without boundaries is indulgence').Bennie Kara discovers an excellent, practical guide to behaviour management that sometimes misses the mark with its commentary In my earlier years of teaching, I had reflection sheets for students to complete when they are in detention to facilitate a conversation to support them to choose more appropriate behaviours in the future. I have no idea why I stopped using these sheets (perhaps because as I became more experienced, the number of detentions I’ve had to give has decreased), but I have now revamped them and them printed and ready to be used. I’ve also decided to let my students know how detentions will be operated so we have a clear understanding before they happen. 3. Have a removal strategy in place before you need it During the October school holidays, I read Running the Room: The Teacher’s Guide to Behaviour by Tom Bennett. As indicated in the title, the book is on managing student behaviour in the classroom. I’ve been teaching for nearly 13 years and I don’t think I have nailed classroom management (but I don’t think any teacher can say they have perfected any part of their practice, in any stage of their career). Classroom management is complex and this book offers lots of evidence-informed and practical strategies for all teachers, regardless of their experience and career stage, in a non-preachy way. The key messages I got from the book are All this is accompanied by strategies, tips and solid advice, bringing together the best of what we know works. It should save teachers old or new from reinventing or rediscovering things, improving their lives and those of their pupils.

He is an extrovert and part of the reason he loves the profession so much is that he gets to communicate with people from all walks of life. He has an empathetic ear and is always willing to listen. He is always looking to expand his growing networks and build relationships within a multidisciplinary team to improve his practice but more importantly his patient care. Like many people Luke turned to running during COVID and has been hooked ever since. He saw a massive change in his own physical and mental health, as well as the positive changes that outdoor exercise was having on the wider community during a tough time. Tom writes and speaks beautifully and with flair, and can make any topic come to life with humour and flow. This is very much the case in his latest book, “ Running the room”. Where his DfE behaviour report was about the behavioural principles at a whole school level, there is more focus in this book on what goes on inside the individual classroom. Below are some of the routines for my Year 7 class, which I have further adjusted after reading the book, such as specifying the number of minutes that students must arrive to class after the bell (so there are no misunderstandings).Twenty years ago this month the Channel 4 documentary series Faking It made its début. You can see it now on the All 4 app, and it's very enjoyable entertainment, conceived well before the deluge of 'real life' transformation series of recent years. Parents and Teachers for Excellence is a group promoting higher standards of education in schools across England The danger of over-focussing on poorly-behaved children: 'I've seen schools where coaches have been hired for students as a reward trip to some theme park, and every seat is occupied by a little rascal/pirate, and all the well-behaved children left behind are gazing at them through the window and thinking 'Who do I have to punch to get on that?''