Everyone knows the old adage “prevention is better than cure”. This is as true of classroom management as it is of anything else. Preventing disruption from occurring in the first place is far better than struggling to regain control when things have all gone pear-shaped.

As staff mentor, I was once asked by a newly-qualified teacher if he could come and observe one of my lessons. He wanted, he said, to see “How you deal with confrontation”. I told him he was welcome to come and see my lesson, but he was unlikely to see any confrontation because I tried hard to make sure it didn’t happen. Of course, the question he should have asked is “How do I avoid confrontation in the first place?”.

Driving efficiencies to provide real cost savings will be top of every secondary school Headteacher’s agenda in 2011. Managing and monitoring pupil behaviour is often administration heavy causing it to be a common time thief for both teachers and non-pastoral staff. An effective way of easing this burden is to implement a well-designed robust IT system that can record, monitor, analyse and manage pupil behaviour.

As teaching, learning and behaviour are inseparable issues in school, managing pupil behaviour efficiently is a core consideration for Headteachers. Without good order in the classroom, effective teaching cannot take place and pupils’ learning is inhibited. Even low-level disruption in the classroom is a significant source of stress for teachers. Poor behaviour, whatever the severity, impacts on every aspect of school life; from exam results to teacher and pupil wellbeing.

Effective and positive behaviour management is achievable in every UK secondary school, through the combination of a well-designed robust IT system and properly supported and trained teachers. Sounds like a simple strategy, but putting a software system in place that enables a school to record, monitor, analyse and manage pupil behaviour effectively can be problematic. This article discusses some of the key considerations when procuring and implementing an effective behaviour management IT system.

Teaching, learning and behaviour are inseparable issues in school. Without good order in the classroom, effective teaching cannot take place and pupils’ learning is inhibited. Even low-level disruption in the classroom is a significant source of stress for teachers. Poor behaviour, whatever the severity, impacts on every aspect of school life; from exam results to teacher and pupil wellbeing. As a result, managing pupil behaviour effectively is at the centre of a school’s core business.

Reading the MIS forum contributions on Edugeek, it’s interesting the number of people who are apparently happy to come up with 'workarounds' to get round the failings of their MIS. Someone, an IT technician in a school usually, will post a query on the forum asking for help with a particular issue he’s having with the school’s MIS. The replies usually run along the lines of “No, you can’t do that on SIMS (CMIS, e1, Integris, whatever) but you can ...” there follows some description of a workaround usually ending with “Dunno why, but it seemed to work for us”.  I suppose this is okay if you were paying 150 quid a year, you might expect to have to do that. But MIS systems are very expensive; I could buy a decent car for what some high schools are paying annually for their MIS. Would I be happy to pay £20k for a car, only to find that it did not, for example, do left turns and I had to ‘workaround’ that by doing three right turns? I think not. So why do schools apparently seem happy to do that with their MIS solutions? One reason is the perfectly human and understandable desire to stick with what you know and are comfortable with, foibles and all. The other reason is ... well, what is the alternative? This is a good question; all the MIS systems available from the major suppliers are all (more or less) equally expensive and each has its own particular drawbacks. So, the argument goes, you might as well stick with what you know, workarounds and all. I’m sure that these MIS systems like SIMS and CMIS were good bits of software when they were first introduced. However, years of bolting bits on, adding extra functions, being worked on by a succession of different software developers have taken their toll and the software becomes less and less reliable over time. These sea changes happen slowly, not in quantum leaps, so that the shortcomings creep up slowly on data managers in schools. After a while, you just get so used to a way of working that you don’t question it.

There has been a rather unfortunate tendency from MIS suppliers in recent years to try and provide a ‘complete solution’ for schools. MIS systems come complete with attendance modules, parent portals, achievement trackers, finance packages and more, usually all at extra cost. Alongside this there is the suspicion that some MIS providers contrive to make it difficult, by means of stiff licence fees and conditions, for smaller independent companies to compete in this ‘add-on’ market. Frequent changes and updates to the MIS software also serve to make things difficult for the small provider; though to be fair, the situation is complicated by the continuous stream of demands coming out of the DfE. Constantly having to update MIS systems to accommodate these statutory requirements has been cited as being one of the reasons for them being so expensive. Schools vary so much in size and character that it is unlikely that the solutions bundled with the MIS system will be flexible enough to provide exactly what each school wants and needs. This is why we need small, independent suppliers who can fill these niches with bespoke products. Unfortunately, the tendency for MIS providers to want to dominate the whole supply chain is stifling this market.

Are some schools confusing behaviour modification with punishment?

Many schools use the system of ‘on report’ for managing individual pupil’s behaviour. This can take several forms, but the most usual is a card or sheet with the day’s lessons in a grid and a space for the teacher to make a comment or mark a grade and sign. Often there will be some sort of target set for the day or week. Most schools will have several types of report, usually at increasing levels of staff seniority: Form Tutor Report, Head of Year Report, SLT or Head Teacher Report, for example.  On report can be a very useful tool in modifying pupil behaviour, but I wonder to what extent some staff in schools just miss the point?

The recently released Interoperability Review from Education, Skills and Children’s Services appears to pour a considerable quantity of cold water on the idea of adopting the US based Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF).  The report declares that there is a compelling case for a national interoperability capability, but goes on to suggest that SIF probably isn’t it. The report outlines several issues with SIF and suggests that unless these can be effectively resolved then SIF is unlikely to be able to provide an effective solution for current UK interoperability needs.

SIF is another example of the way UK governments scour the world looking for solutions to issues here in Britain. Now, whilst I’m all in favour of not re-inventing the wheel, the idea that you can pluck a system from its home environment – for which it was purpose designed and in which it may well function perfectly – and drop it into a UK context is to me both lazy and somewhat naive. For example, the Swedish model of free schools / open schools or whatever touted by Team Gove may work perfectly well in Sweden; but why should they do so here; where social values and issues, parental engagement, pupil work ethic etc may be quite different? Surely, rather than continually come up with workarounds in order to ram the square SIF peg into a decidedly round UK hole, it would be much better to come up with our own solution to suit our needs, not America’s. Indeed, the report does suggest looking at the work of the Information Standards Board, which has an evolving set of national business data standards.

GCSE results are out and Number 3 Son gets 3 ‘A’s, 4 ‘B’s and some assorted ‘D’s.  So... no A* then?

A* - what’s that about anyway?  The simple answer is that ‘too many’ pupils are achieving the top grade. At one time a simple grade ‘A ‘was enough to identify the highest achievers. However the number of pupils achieving this grade has steadily increased over the years. Whether this grade inflation is due to ‘dumbing down’ or not is beside the point – it’s there, for whatever reason, and we have to take it into consideration.  So, in order to identify ‘the best of the best’ a ‘Beyond ‘A’ Grade’ was introduced, the coveted A*; first at GCSE and now, for the first time, at A-level.

The introduction of A* at A-level begs a question; why extend the range of pass grades in order to differentiate pupils, rather than simply increasing the rigour of the test and leaving the grades as they are? The effect, in terms of differentiation, is exactly the same. The difference, however, is that in the former case the less able can still ‘pass’ and in the latter they may ‘fail’ - and there are two good reasons why the latter cannot happen: firstly, a reduction in the pass rate would be political suicide for any government these days.  Secondly, I believe it is a manifestation of a particular syndrome we have in schools at the moment; that of not permitting pupils to experience failure – of any sort.

I was watching David Cameron doing a public Q+A session on TV a week or so ago. In response to a question from a teacher he began to explain where the Conservatives stand on education and, in particular, how they will ‘Restore Order and Discipline in the Classroom’. One of the ideas he pushed quite strongly was to do away with the requirement to provide parents with 24 hours notice of detention. Good soundbite: let's get tough on the little blighters, show 'em who's boss, eh?

But I wonder how many schools would actually make use of the legal right to detain without notice? There are good reasons why schools give parents 24 hours notice; and those reasons don't go away if you remove the legal requirement for notice. I believe that detaining children after school without notice would do nothing other than damage the relationship between school and parent. Many pupils have familial responsibilities outside school time, from collecting younger siblings to doing shopping on the way home. They may also have appointments with a dentist or doctor. How thrilled would you be if your family visit to see Gran in hospital was kiboshed by little Johnny being an hour late home from school without notice? Even if a child didn’t have a commitment after school, many are wily enough to claim one – leaving the teacher in the position of having to either substantiate the claim with a phone call home or accept it:

Tom Stoppard has recently spoken of his fear for the future of the printed page. In this age of digital media, does the old fashioned medium of dead trees have a future?

Perhaps it's just me, but I find it difficult and tiring to read off the screen. It's only when I print my documents off that I see all the typos and errors! I was a science teacher until quite recently and as far as I'm concerned, there's no danger of on-line text books taking over from real, hands on, dog eared text books. I have many years’ experience of using both media in my classes: