Preventing Challenging Behaviours

Preventing Challenging Behaviours

1. Set High Behaviour Expectations With Students

   • 1. Co - Construct rules
     • Effective rules
       • Stated behaviourally and positively
       • Specific
       • Age-Appropriate
       • Help students understand the values
     • How?
       • Get students to share their expectations
       • Lead students to write the rules to meet their expectations
       • Display rules at visible location
       • Update rules
     • Example
       • Student's expectation: I want my views to be heard
         • Class Expectation: One person talks at a time
           • Co-Constructed rules: Wait for my turn to speak
             • Values: Respect
   • 2. Put procedures in to place
     • Rules and Routines
       • Need to deliberately tell the students the right behaviour and reinforce
   • 3. Use preventive prompts
     • Use brief verbal reminder of expected behaviour before activity starts
   • 4. Manage common area
     • Organise common areas
       • Clearly demarcate the different playing areas
     • Supervise Actively
       • Praise positive behaviour
       • Deal with behavioural incidents immediately and follow up with respective teachers
       • Do not allow rough and tumble play
     • Look out for problem signs
       • Student who are always by himself
       • Group laughing at someone unhappy and restricting other children from playing
   • 5. Create safe reporting channels
     • Provide safe reporting options, weekly journals
     • Maintaining students' confidentiality
   • 6. Use appropriate consequences
     • Use logical consequences instead of punishments
       • Help students to take responsibility and develop self-control
       • Does not define them as failures or bad people
       • 3 Rs in Logical Consequences
         • Respectful: Speak to student in calm tone. Focus on behaviour, not the person and be firm. No negotiate
         • Relevant: Help students to see the cause and effect
         • Realistic: Consequences are reasonable and teacher need to follow through.

2. Keep Students Meaningfully Engaged

   • 1. Use strategies to keep student engaged in class activities
     • Assigning each student a specific role
       • Get students to demonstrate, Time keeper, Score keeper
   • 2. Have a back-up plan for disruption to lesson
     • In case of attending to meltdown or emergency call
       • Students leaders to take charge to ensure class is quiet
       • Silent Signal 1,2 and 3

3. Model Mutual Respect, Build Acceptance and Care Among Students

   • 1. Model mutual respect
     • Respect students as individuals
     • Apologise when you make a mistake
     • Be fair and reasonable
   • 2. Encourage interaction across friendship groups
     • Change grouping periodically
     • Carry out activities to help students discover similarities
   • 3. Encourage acts of kindness
     • Get students to post about kind acts they have received
   • 4. Create peer support in class for students who require more social support
     • Assign more socially-skilled students to be buddies
     • Frame being a buddy as a form of recognition
   • 5. Encourage students to share about their qualities and needs
     • Share positive and helpful ways to cope with differences
     • Identify reasons to be proud of their differences

4. Model, Explicitly Teach And Reinforce Social-Emotional Skills

   • 1. Anger management
     • Teacher students to identify physiological signs of anger things that trigger
       • Number scale
       • Body shaking
     • Coping strategies
       • Deep breathing
       • Time out and count to 10
       • Mental relaxation
       • Muscle relaxation
   • 2. Assertiveness
     • Teach students to be assertive and not aggressive
     • Compromisebut not give in to negative peer pressure
   • 3. Social awareness and empathy
     • Teach students to practise perspective-taking
     • Teach students to read non-verbal cues
   • 4. Response to hurtful behaviours
     • Tell students to report the incident to an adult
     • Provide emotional support to the affected students
     • S.W.O.R.D...... Say "Stop it". Walk away. Openly and respectfully disagree with hurtful words. Remind the perpetrator to calm down. Declare that everyone deserves kindess