As all school principals will know, positive classroom behaviour is essential for learning and achievement. When students are focused and engaged, teachers are able to better use their time teaching, and spend less time reacting to and managing disruptive behaviours. As a result, students progress and enjoy their learning more, and less strain is put on educators.
Supporting positive classroom behaviour is a shared responsibility and joint actions are needed across school teams and leaders, the wider community, and through system supports like national guidance and programmes, initial teacher education, and access to experts.
Responding to requests from teachers and principals about where they want more support, ERO has released new research and good practice resources on classroom behaviour. These new publications look at what is happening in Aotearoa New Zealand schools, what needs to shift to make improvements to the supports that schools receive, and strategies teachers and leaders can use to respond to challenging behaviour in their schools.
What ERO found out about behaviour in our classrooms
Leaders and teachers say behaviour has become worse
Over half of the teachers we talked to say that all types of disruptive behaviour have become worse in the last two years. A quarter of principals told us they are seeing students physically harm others, and damage or take property at least every day.
Teachers’ and principals’ perception of behaviour change overall in the last two years
Behaviour is impacting students’ learning and attendance
Three-quarters of teachers report disruptive behaviour is impacting students’ progress and we know students in better behaved classes have higher achievement. It is also preventing schools improving attendance – two-thirds of teachers say it is having a large impact on students’ enjoyment of school, which is key to attendance.
Disrupted behaviour is associated with negative life outcomes
Student behaviour is sometimes managed through being stood-down or suspended. These students have worse life outcomes – experiencing stand-downs is linked to other longer-term outcomes such as unemployment, offending, and poor health.
The younger a student’s first stand-down, suspension, or exclusion, the more likely they are to receive a benefit, have lower income, have a greater number of admissions to emergency departments, offend, or receive a custodial sentence.
Achievement at age 20 by number of stand-downs
Disruptive behaviour in classrooms is also affecting teachers
We found that 47 per cent of teachers are spending 40 to 50 minutes a day or more responding to challenging behaviour – limiting their time to teach. Half of teachers also say classroom behaviour has a large impact on their intention to stay in the profession.
There is a disconnect between how supported principals think their staff are by policies and procedures, and how supported staff feel
This finding may be of particular interest to NZPF members – teaching staff and principals have different views of the effectiveness and consistency of their documented school behaviour approach. For example, one in four teachers think school behaviour policies are not applied consistently, a view shared by only one in 50 principals.
Principals and teachers reporting that their behaviour policies and procedures are ineffective and not applied consistently
Schools aren’t always set up or supported to manage disruptive behaviours
Many teachers and principals struggle to access the expert support they need. For example, three-quarters of principals find timely advice from experts to be an important support, yet half of principals find it difficult to access. In addition to this, over half of principals told us they find it difficult to access the time they need to tackle behaviour issues.
My biggest concern and frustration is around access to resourcing . . . We can see the needs of these children. But the time and effort it takes to be able to access any sort of outside support and funding is really frustrating . . . because it needs to happen in a timely manner. When I talk to other principals, most of the time it’s us having to recheck staffing to find money from other areas of the school where it might have gone, because number one, is supporting our teachers to be able to teach. – Principal
What schools can do – good practice for managing challenging behaviour
ERO’s evaluation report, Time to Focus: Behaviour in our Classrooms, shows that there are significant behaviour challenges facing schools, and that deliberate actions and shared responsibility are needed at a national level to change this. However, the evidence also shows that there are some school and classroom-level actions that can make a real difference to student behaviour.
To support schools, ERO has produced a good practice report and three good practice guides, offering practical guidance on six key practices that can make the most difference. There are links to these at the end of this article.
The six evidence-based areas of practice are:
The six areas of practice include a combination of ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ strategies
- Proactive strategies are about encouraging positive behaviour. They involve working to create a positive and ordered learning environment, responding positively to students who show good behaviour, and encouraging more positive behaviour over time.
- Reactive strategies are about discouraging negative behaviour. They involve responding to students who are behaving poorly to discourage challenging behaviour and providing targeted support for improved behaviour over time.
ERO visited schools across the country to see how teachers and leaders are making these six key practices happen in real life. Their strategies and ideas are set out in a ‘good practice’ report and in practical guides for school leaders and for teachers – links to these are below.
I’m very clear with the parents and whānau that we have reflective steps . . . We don’t go punitive straight away. We have a levelled approach to it, and I think we’ve got quite a bit of buy-in from them since we brought that in about three years ago. – Principal
Read these resources on ERO’s new research-focused website
You can find these new resources on ERO’s evidence and insights website evidence.ero.govt.nz – a one stop resource hub for all of ERO’s insights and good practice resources.
Practical resources
Guide for Leaders: Behaviour in our Classrooms: https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/guide-for-leaders-behaviour-in-our-classrooms
Guide for Teachers: Behaviour in our Classrooms: https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/guide-for-teachers-behaviour-in-our-classrooms
Insights for School Boards: Behaviour in our Classrooms: https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/insights-for-school-boards-behaviour-in-our-classrooms
Reports
Good practice report – Behaviour in our classrooms: https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/good-practice-behaviour-in-our-classrooms
Time to focus: Behaviour in our classrooms: https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/time-to-focus-behaviour-in-our-classrooms
Time to focus: Behaviour in our classrooms – Summary: https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/time-to-focus-behaviour-in-our-classrooms-summary
Next steps
We know that schools can’t shift the dial on this alone, they need structural and expert support and parents play a key role too. ERO is recommending a national approach to how we manage behaviour in our schools so that students can get the best out of their education. We need to increase support for teachers, alongside setting clear expectations from all of us about what good behaviour looks like so we can prevent and respond to this challenge effectively – setting everyone up for success.