MINDSET
John d’Abbro, the head teacher in Channel 4’s popular TV show Jamie’s Dream School and
recipient of an OBE for services to special education:
‘You must respect kids for them to respect you, be fair, trustworthy and honest”.
The head of New Rush Hall Group, an organisation that works with children with
behavioural, emotional and social difficulties, says: “Learning is an exploratory and uncertain
process so children have to trust you to learn from and with you. A big part of it is about
making children feel that you care about them.
“That’s not to say we should be all lovey-dovey; and it’s not about getting children to like
you either, you can respect someone without liking them. We need to go into class
confident, and work to gain the respect of our students, making them realise we want to be
there.”
So, with his extensive background in handling students with complex needs, what wisdom
does d’Abbro have to offer around behaviour management? Last week he came to the
Guardian’s offices to give us his five top tips. Here’s what he said:
Start the lesson well
I always try to greet children as they come in. You need to respect them if you want them to
respect you. If you came to my house I’d greet you as you came in, it’s just good manners.
I’d also say, as a general strategy, don’t be noisy at the start of class because often a noisy
teacher leads to a noisy class. I’ll get in trouble for saying that, but in my experience, it tends
to be the case. At the start of a lesson the children have to take up their places as learners
and, if they are coming in straight from the playground, you need a bridge – something to
ease the transition from being switched off to being switched on. If children come in still
sweaty and buzzing I might give them a starter activity that lets them talk for two minutes,
but then it’s their turn to listen.
Plan, plan and plan again
As the old adage goes: failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Of course, there have been
times when I’ve walked into a class to cover a lesson not knowing exactly what I am
supposed to be doing, but I always have about three or four pre-planned lessons in the bag.
If you have a relationship with children you can get away with being less prepared, but if not,
it can result in chaos. So, always cover the basics to ensure you have a well-behaved lesson,
including having the right equipment and a plan B for when things don’t go as you thought
they would.
Use a range of teaching strategies
In some lessons I use a whiteboard and in others I talk to the children or adopt a kinaesthetic
approach. This works because we all learn differently. One student might not respond well
to the particular strategy you are using and become distracted and/or disruptive. So, if you
use a range of techniques chances are that most of them will get on well with at least one of
them, and you minimise the potential for disruptive behaviour.
Mean what you say and say what you mean
Never threaten to do something if you’re not going to do it. Kids need consistency and
security. For example, with one child recently I said that if he directed inappropriate
language at me he’d get 30 minutes in detention. He did, and I made him stay to the minute.
It sends the message that if I say something then it happens.
Having said that, you can always be flexible once you have a framework. About six months
ago, for example, I had a kid in detention and as part of his bail conditions he had regular
meetings with his youth offending team. He told me he couldn’t do detention because if he
did he’d be late to meet them and be in breach. I said, “I am happy to ring the officer up and
tell them” but he said it was his last chance and he’d been late all week. He said he would do
the detention the next day and in the end I decided to meet him halfway. Sometimes I think
you just need to adopt a more human approach.
In that circumstance we’d built up a relationship – it was later in the year. At the beginning
of the school year it is important that you set your stall out, and make the pupils clear of
your expectations and the consequences of inappropriate behaviour. To quote that great Bill
Rogers line (I wish I had said it): “The certainty of the consequence is more important than
the severity.”
Be confident
There are days when you go in and you are not feeling a million dollars but you have to act
as though you are. It’s not about being disingenuous – kids have a right to the best lesson
you can give them.
Source: The Guardian
Our teachers have grown up in a society which reveres effortless giftedness and are part of an
establishment which is steeped in fixed mindset systems – but the good news is that there are things
we can all do to create a growth mindset culture in our schools.
In our classrooms
Let’s start with something that doesn’t require a huge shift in your teaching practice but,
nevertheless, you might find surprisingly difficult: changing the way you speak. You’ll be amazed by
how much fixed mindset language you use without realising; just think about your own classroom,
with those bright girls on the green table who’ve got all that potential and your red table with the
less able pupils who do O.K. but have to try hard. Perhaps start with changing just one word and ask
the pupils to help by correcting you every time you say it, for example replace ability with skill. Here
are some common examples of fixed mindset language, with suggestions for empowering alternative
Another simple strategy is to give learners a chance to struggle. It can be hard to sit back and watch a
pupil who is finding something difficult, especially when there is strong pressure to show ‘progress’.
Yet it’s so important that children learn to embrace the feeling of struggling, that they learn to try
harder and can look for alternative ways to find the answers.
In our schools
Begin by looking at your school policies to ensure they embody growth mindset principles. Reports
are an obvious example and it could be extended to include performance management indicators, to
prompt teachers to actively encourage growth mindsets. On a grander scale consider the school
structures; is it really necessary to set pupils in any subjects?
At the school where I teach, we developed a ‘Challenge All’ approach. Pupils who had been placed on
the G+T register at primary school were still tracked as was required by Ofsted but this was not
shared publicly with pupils or staff. This meant that teachers didn’t focus their extension activities on
the same small cohort of pupils (who were selected as ‘gifted’ based on their performance in a oneoff test in Year 7). Instead, staff training focused on effective strategies for differentiating so that all
learners at any given task in any lesson were encouraged to try more challenging activities.
Do you reward pupils for effort or for ability? If you give prizes for effort that is at least in line with
growth mindset thinking, however even this could reduce a child’s intrinsic motivation to learn. An
alternative approach which we found to be extremely successful was to create a fund to which any
pupils could bid for a specific item to help them improve at something about which they are
passionate. Previous bids have included drama lessons, a graphic design tablet and more unusual
items like specialist swimsuits for diving. At a later interview with the bursar and the head teacher
pupils were required to show how they had tried to improve and become more expert with effort,
devotion and resilience.
There are many ways to develop a growth mindset school when you think creatively. I feel the
starting point is to change the thinking of everyone in the organisation, by helping them to broaden
their understanding of the concept of intelligence. I also think it is important to highlight that
underlying everything is a ‘Slow Education’ philosophy. This recognises that transforming the way
that teachers and learners think about intelligence from fixed to growth mindset, as well as adjusting
their long-standing classroom habits, will be a slow process; it will take an investment of time and
effort to bring about sustainable change and a culture of challenge.
Source: www.teachsecondary.com