SAP Project Report: Emily Birch, Charlotte Killman, Sophie George and Danielle Chadband Second Year (UG2) Primary ITE Trainees with Sue Irving Primary ITE Tutor

Title: ‘Strengthening Resilience: Development and use of a behaviour management toolkit (course material)’

Sue Irving (Primary ITE tutor) with Emily Birch, Charlotte Killman, Sophie George and Danielle Chadband (Second Year Primary ITE trainees)

Subject discipline: Primary Initial Teacher Education

This SAP research project involved 4 primary ITE trainees in the second year (UG2) of their training. The aim of the project was to develop and explore ways that primary ITE trainees can develop their range and awareness of behaviour management strategies. The national context for this project was influenced by: DfE requirements for all trainees to meet Teachers’ Standards in Behaviour Management (DfE 2012); OfSTED (2015) and the national review of ITT which recommends trainees should ‘…develop their own classroom presence and cover use of voice, body language…’ (Carter, 2015: p.10). A prototype of a practical behaviour management toolkit (BMT), designed by the SAP tutor (Sue Irving) was produced which aimed to enhance and build on trainees’ proactive behaviour management strategies. Effective use in school settings and development of this course material for all primary trainees formed the basis of the project.

Research methods and data collection were mostly qualitative and included: questionnaires; professional dialogue; self-evaluation and reflection. The UG2 SAPs’ role was to try out and experiment with a range of behaviour management strategies, using the BMT as a guide, prior to and while on school experience in order to enhance their practical skills. As the BMT course material was likely to become embedded more extensively across all primary ITE courses and partnership schools, an important aspect of this SAP project was that trainees were involved in the design and development. Behaviour management can be personal and demanding, so a sense of ownership was recognised as being essential. Whilst enhanced employability, strengthened resilience and a positive impact in school were outcomes aimed for in the long term, this SAP project addressed many aspect of the TEF framework, particularly: links between staff research and teaching; work based learning; communities of practice; student engagement; supporting and mentoring; pedagogical innovations; taking risks and experimenting.

Starting Points

Initial interest for this project arose from the SAP team’s individual targets following their first school experience. Emily desired to explore a variety of pro-active approaches to prevent and address behaviour management. Sophie needed to develop her skills of behaviour management to feel prepared for her second placement. After experiencing SE 1 in a challenging environment, Charlotte had behaviour management coaching from her class teacher, which developed her awareness of the importance of behaviour management strategies. On SE 1, Danielle’s tutor discussed the need for her to adapt her volume and tone of voice when addressing challenging behaviour.

Lines of Enquiry

Sue, Charlotte, Emily,Sophie and Danielle had an initial meeting to discuss the possibilities of this project, including how the behaviour management toolkit could be utilised most effectively. The group discussed which strategies of the BMT they would like to individually implement on their two week unassessed school experience. The group created a mind map to display and narrow down the possible lines of enquiry (Appendix A) in order to provide manageable targets to achieve on school experience.

Initially, the SAP trainees discussed personal targets regarding behaviour management following their first year school experience. This enabled them to select a variety of behaviour management strategies from the BMT to trial out in school, as appropriate totheir individual targets. Emily and Sophie focused on developing relationships with individual pupils to discover whether secure rapport could act as a preventative measure and promote learning behaviours Danielle practised adapting her volume and tone of voice.

Data collection and methods:

Data was mostly qualitative and included: professional dialogue, teaching experience, reflections, coding and analysing themes, a literature search based on the theme of ‘teacher resilience’ and a short survey. After the 2 week school placement, although the SAP team had implemented strategies from the BMT and valued the effectiveness of this resource, they wanted to find out if the current UG2s would also find the BMT a useful resource. The SAP team carried out a short survey to discover the current knowledge and understanding current UG2 trainee teachers had of behaviour management strategies beforetheir longer and assessed teaching placement. Analysis of the 26 survey responses revealed that behaviour management was a sensitive topic amongst UG2 trainees as they seemed reluctant to discuss this area of the teaching profession and their personal confidence with managing behaviour in the classroom. The apparent feeling of fear and negative stigma attached to feeling unconfident with controlling classroom behaviour, developed our understanding of the importance of distributing the behaviour management toolkit amongst trainees. The SAP group decided that this would provide a resource for trainees to refer to and utilise whilst on school experience.

Reflections on the SAP experience

Reflecting on their SAP experience as a whole, the SAP team felt that it had enhanced their professional development, as utilising the behaviour management tool kit had raised their awareness of different stages and strategies for promoting learning behaviours. They cemented their understanding that behaviour management is most effective when measures are pro-active and preventative. The BMT acted as a manual for all trainees to refer to if they required and that having this support and plan whilst on placement, gave them confidence, reduced stress and thus strengthened their resilience when teaching.

The experience improved their confidence with managing behaviour and with presenting findings to a range of audiences including whole cohorts of students and colleagues across institutes and partnershipschools. Furthermore, carrying out research methods, interpreting data and structuring the research project, developed necessary skills to support them when writing their final dissertations.

Future developments

As a result of the favourable outcomes of this project in terms of strengthening resilience, this resource will be used to support all primary trainees in school and across partnerships. The SAP group felt that it was important that fellow trainees use resource in a dynamic and evolving manner; to achieve this the UG2 SAP group will be involved in suggestions for embedding the BMT within primary ITE courses.

References

Carter, Sir A. (2015) Carter Review of initial teacher training (ITT) [On-line] Available from [Accessed 26th October 2015].

Department for Education (DfE) Teachers Standards [On-line] Available from

[Accessed 26th October 2015].

Ofsted, Initial teacher education inspection handbook [On-line] Available from [Accessed 26th October 2015].

17th June 2016