Can I Go and Play Now?. Greg Bottrill
but at the same time also reminds them that you are the master of their universe. They are on your turf.
Your first half term is the perfect time to ensure that this happens. It doesn’t rely on you telling them the rules and then you giving time out left, right and centre until they ‘get’ it. Really, you want this to be a collaborative approach where you explain and negotiate with the children a simple charter or rule set that you all agree to follow with clear justifications for each point. You might choose to do this as a whole-class exercise or a small group one, but ultimately you want children to be active participants in setting the ground rules for the year ahead. Why should they walk inside? Is it right to dump your coat on the floor? Why should you wash your hands before eating a snack? What should they do with resources that they have got out and no longer need and why? Having these basic chats with children puts them in a position of control (with a little steering if necessary) and it also explains to them the rationale behind the universe in which they will spend the next year of their lives. Collaboration and cohesion should be at the heart of this process. It’s a fantastic Communication and Language opportunity, too. You may also choose to put up a simple display since this is, after all, a purposeful element of your day-to-day routine. You may choose not to do this, but use verbal reminders based on individual children. Only put up the display because your heart tells you to.
Of course, children are children and you will inevitably find yourself engaged in discussions about boundaries across the year, but ultimately you are looking for the children to have a concept of teamwork and togetherness, of safety and of consequence if the boundaries are crossed. Again, children look to you as the adult to ensure that this happens. They want you to be approachable and loving, but at the same time you will also need to let them know that your agreed boundaries are there for all and that the consequence is equal to all.
There is a slight caveat to that, however. Some children will find boundaries incredibly hard for many, many reasons. It’s a case of making ‘reasonable adjustments’ here: of picking battles, of making sure that you can bend slightly if you feel that the individual child will benefit from a slight tweak. Sometimes it can be appropriate to explain to the other children why you are doing this – you will need to think carefully about how to present this to them, however, as children can be prone to over-sharing at home (although most children just say ‘nothing’ to the question ‘What did you do at school today?’). Patience is key in all of this. It’s about making sure you try to think ahead and unpick triggers for behaviour too. This is where the children need you to be the adult – you are their ‘thinking brain’ at times, but in order to be this kind of brain, you need to think like a child too. Are my carpet times noisy and lacking in focus from the children? Does the walk to the dinner hall often involve lots of noise and running? Are resources not being used with care and a sense of responsibility? If so, then it’s time to unpick what is happening. Are you in the right place in the line? Are your carpet times engaging and pacy? Have you considered what the children might be telling you through their behaviour?
When I was training to be a teacher in Cheltenham, I had the good fortune to come under the influence of the course leader, Colin Forster. He is an incredibly inspiring man who on the first day went through the whole lecture hall of around 100 students and named every single one of them. How he did it I don’t know, but from that moment I was hooked. On around the fourth week of the course we gathered in the lecture hall to hear his thoughts on Behaviour Management. In walked Colin who stood at the lectern, welcomed everybody and then said, ‘It’s quite simple. Make everything you do with children interesting to them’, and with that he walked out. And that was it. It has stayed with me ten years on because he was right.
Engagement is absolutely vital not only to behaviour but also to learning
Having said that, we know that within a school day it is not always as easy to do as to say, so let’s consider the second key component to the children’s universe if we are going to allow them the necessary freedom that they deserve and thrive in.
‘Some day soon I will forget this junkyard/Take you with me if you’re going that way/It’s a changing world and I can tell you one thing/Time is wasting, shadows waiting/Love will slip away’ – Julie Profumo, Cleaners From Venus
We all live for reward in some way. We’re conditioned to it. We work for a wage. We love to receive love. This reward can sometimes be one we’re not always aware of and it can also be tangible like money as well as abstract like happiness or being teenage-ingly in endorphin-driven love.
Children are no different. The most common reward that teachers think of is the trusty sticker – stars, footballs, monsters, fairies, etc. The problem here is that this favourite can soon prove divisive. Almost as soon as the sticker has hit the school jumper you can hear the other children in the near vicinity asking for stickers too, and then the clamour begins, and the questioning and the general sense of unfairness that 9/10 times ensues. And it’s usually those children who don’t necessarily day-in-day-out deserve a sticker that are the quickest to be rewarded for doing things that the rest of the class do without prompting.
A more preferable solution is to use the class charter as the starting point and introduce a class reward system. This way the children are working as a collaborative team to ensure that they explore and make decisions for the collective good. As soon as you catch children making the choices that you have agreed in your charter, then you award them, not as an individual but as a whole. In my own setting we use go-gos, small brightly coloured plastic aliens that are stored in a see-through pot. Next to this pot is another pot to which go-gos are transferred one by one for acts of positive behaviour. As soon as the pot is empty, the class gets some reward whether it be bubbles, sitting on a whoopee cushion, a go with a light sabre, being sprayed in the face with water – whatever thing makes them laugh and know that they have done a Good Thing. It’s an incredibly powerful way to ensure that children see themselves as part of something bigger than being an individual.
‘Children waiting for the day they feel good/Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday/Made to feel the way that every child should/Sit and listen, sit and listen/Went to school and I was very nervous No one knew me, no one knew me ...’– Mad World, Tears For Fears
This is where your boundaries, high expectations and collective reward system combine to meet all these developmental needs while at the same time hopefully being open to some laughter and a sense of fun along the way. And children thrive on fun, on being happy and safe. You have created a perfect positive storm in preparation for the terms ahead in which children can explore and investigate within a structure that recognises them as people first and foremost. They feel rewarded for their demonstrations of operating within their agreed systems and are housed in a clear and unfussy room which enables them to think, feel and be.
Alongside all of this lies you as the model. The boundaries that you have created with the children need to be followed by you. If you have agreed with the children that ‘indoor voices’ need to be used because the children want a quiet indoor environment, you yourself as the adult need to follow their rule too. This means no shouting across the space to get children’s attention or barking commands as the children line up. You need to model the expectations children have agreed on. If you don’t, then the children will quickly see through you and begin to question why they should need to behave within the boundaries too. It’s a very subtle thing that happens here and if children begin to have their respect for you eroded, it can be very difficult to win back. Get it right from day one and you give yourself the best chance to create something wonderful for your children, the memory of which will stay with them for a long time and, who knows, it may even stay with you too.
‘In this elegant chaos I stand to one side ...’ Julian Cope
The two words ‘day one’ in that last sentence are really important. All too often there’s a rush to assess, monitor and find a baseline. Yes, starting points are critical if we are to understand children’s Next Steps, but this needs to come from the Early Years practitioner not via pressure from further up the school or just because that’s what the school do at a certain point in the school year. You need time to make relationships, create the charter, allow children to find their