Teach Secondary Issue 14.7

Assert your PRESENCE If your behaviour management style isn’t having the impact you’d hope, trying injecting it with more presence and clarity, suggests Robin Launder … P resence and clarity work together. When your delivery exhibits the former, your students will be more likely to give you their full attention. When you demonstrate the latter, they’re more likely to understand what you’re saying. When combined, there’s a greater chance that your students will behave as you want them to. This close connection is why presence and clarity have their own joint chapter inmy recently published book, Brilliant Behaviour in 60 Seconds or Less (out now!). The tips presented here come from there – and the more you use them, the greater your presence and clarity will be. Positioning, posture, primer, direction Take a central and commanding position when you address the class. Stand square on and take up space. Don’t fidget or pace around the room– it’s distracting and conveys nervousness. Instead, own the space by remaining still and being self-contained. Use a primer (e.g. “ Year 9s... ”) and direction (“ ...eyes on me. ”) when issuing instructions. Be sure to include a brief pause after the primer so that the students have a moment to focus on you. That way, they won’t miss or misunderstand the direction. You could also add a gesture for added emphasis. For the below examples, these could respectively entail putting down an imaginary pen, and raising your palms upward: • “ Class… pens down. ” • “ Haley’s group – you may now stand. ” Eye contact and non-verbals When addressing the class, insist onmaintaining eye contact and scan the students. Our innate tendency is to look at people when they speak to us, to the point where it feels rude not to, so let your gaze settle on a few random– and not-so-random – students. Be sure to make appropriate allowances for students with SEND. Non-verbal communication can include gestures, facial expressions, physical movement, pauses in delivery and body posture, as well as eye contact. To be a clear and compelling presence in the class, these elements must all be exaggerated to a degree. Subtle non-verbals can be easily missed and/or misunderstood, so think of yourself as an actor playing to the cheap seats at the back of the theatre. That’s the level of exaggeration you need to be going for. Confident vocalising, casual confidence Speak with the expectation that what you’re saying will be listened to. Take out any nervousness, hesitancy or suggestion of an apologetic tone. Also, don’t rush. Rushing tells your students that your message isn’t important – because if it was, you wouldn’t rush. Instead, use a deliberate and crisp delivery. Devices such as dramatic pauses, keyword emphasis and repetition—and, indeed, repetition and repetition— can be used to highlight important content. Most discussions about presence will tend to focus on those formal classroom elements, but you do also need presence for less formal interactions – such as when you’re exploring an idea with students, or during whole class discussions. These are the times when you’ll need to exude casual confidence . The core elements stay the same. It’s still best to face students square on, establish eye contact and take up space, but you can now be more relaxed in how you achieve those things. Youmight, for instance, lean against the side of your desk, or perhaps even perch on top of it. Your body language can afford to be more open, and the way you speak, more conversational. You’ll probably smile and nod more, too. Low-key humour might also feature. Even so, you’re still very much the person in charge, orchestrating contributions from the class and managing your students’ behaviour. In fact, it will be the very casualness of your approach, combined with an abundance of confidence, that tells your students you’re in charge . Concise precision, carefully controlled Use as fewwords as possible, and be exacting in your choices as to what those words should be. Avoid using jargon and technical terms, unless you’ve taught them and want the students to practise hearing and using them. Otherwise, stick to plain English. Don’t let your word choice present any barriers to understanding. If an instruction or explanation will unavoidably involve some degree of complexity or “Thinkofyourselfas anactor playing to the cheap seats at the backof the theatre” 48 teachwire.net/secondary