3 How common school systems currently manage low level disruption

Nelson, M.F. (2002) breaks down five school disciplinary strategies [6]. Within these examples Canter’s ‘Assertive Discipline’ (1987), as summarised on the ‘Assertive Discipline’ entry [7] below, would appear to reflect the aspirations of most secondary school behaviour management strategies:

‘Usage:

• Dismiss the thought that there is any acceptable reason for misbehaviour.
• Decide which rules (4 or 5 are best) you wish to implement in your classroom.
• Determine negative consequences for noncompliance.
• Determine positive consequences for appropriate behaviour.
• List the rules on the board along with the positive and negative consequences.
• Have the students write the rules and take them home to be signed by the parents and return an attached message explaining the program and requesting their help.
• Implement the program immediately.’

Additionally the ‘principle teachings’ of Canter’s assertive discipline are also recorded:

• ‘I will not tolerate any student stopping me from teaching.
• I will not tolerate any student preventing another student from learning.
• I will not tolerate any student engaging in any behaviour that is not in the student's best interest and the best interest of others.
• Most importantly, whenever a student chooses to behave appropriately, I will immediately recognise and reinforce such behaviour.’

In addition to this, a list of legally enforceable negative consequences for ‘non-compliance’ is provided by the government [8]:

• ‘a telling-off
• a letter home
• removal from a class or group
• confiscating something inappropriate for school , eg mobile phone or MP3 player
• detention.’

To this the author adds from UK experience: 

• internal behaviour reports 
• inclusion (alternative provision) for persistent offenders
• ‘zero tolerance’
• verbal warnings prior to any of the above
• procedures for recognising and reinforcing positive behaviour such as the ‘Establish Maintain Restore’ (EMR) framework. [9]

Schools will also have dedicated staff responsible for the overall management of pupil behaviour in the school (e.g. across key stages and year groups) and ways of recording data for sharing between staff, parents and relevant bodies external to the school.

These measures combined - as both preventative and restorative strategies - appear to show schools being well equipped to deal with low level disruption. However, two final examples describe the extremes between which much of the above is interpreted:

‘A study undertaken in primary schools that advocated ignoring poor behaviour, [10] in which Professor Tamsin Ford, of the University of Exeter Medical School, summarised: “If the teacher lets go of the tug of war rope and just ignores it then there’s no fun carrying on and it will just stop.”’

'[A secondary school describing its ‘behaviour for learning’ policy as] purposely complex, with many layers. Each layer is another opportunity to address and then change behaviours for the better.’ [11]

How well staff interact with such wide ranging measures is discussed within the next section.

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References:

 6 ‘A Qualitative Study of Effective School Discipline Practices: Perceptions of Administrators, Tenured Teachers, and Parents in Twenty Schools’, Nelson, M.F. (2002), see p18-23.

7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assertive_discipline

8 https://www.gov.uk/school-discipline-exclusions

9 EEF: EMR (Establish Maintain Restore) from https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Behaviour/EEF_Improving_behaviour_in_schools_Report.pdf (p.10)

10 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teachers-behaviour-classroom-students-mental-health-school-exeter-university-school-children-a8451656.html

11 https://www.schoolnameonrequest/behaviour-statement (school name available on request)