A lesson doesn’t necessarily have to be totally silent in order to be a success – unless you’re Marcel Marceau delivering his famous ‘a life in mime’ lecture – but if noise levels rise to the point where they are affecting others, it’s time to take action. Here are some things to consider. 

1. Assess your delivery. 

Have you been talking too...

Classroom management can be especially hard when you’re a supply or substitute teacher. You don’t know the class, so don’t know the malleable students from the challenging ones. What’s more, these students don’t knowyouand some of them are going to test your boundaries. They’re going to find it fun to see how much they can get away with. 

So how do you...

This is a very simple classroom management strategy which I use at seminars and workshops to demonstrate the power of giving students responsibility for their own behaviour. Not only can this technique get a group of students quiet in as little as 10 seconds, it also strengthens staff/student relationships, injects a little humour into the session and gives challenging students the attention...

A student who has no interest in lessons (i.e. anything you say and do) can have a terrible impact on the rest of the class. What you must remember however is that this student probably wants to succeed – most do, at heart – but has virtually given up due to a succession of failures, discouragement and low self-image. It may take time to reach this student and help them see life...

I started teaching 25 years ago – and despite nearly three decades worth of experience, the incredible power of positive feedback for correcting or redirecting a child’s behaviour still utterly amazes me. 

My 7-year-old daughter had her best friend around for tea recently. The two of them had been talking about it all week and were very excited. I knew it was always going to be...

This extract from my book Take Control of the Noisy Class (available on Amazon) highlights some of the problems associated with an over-reliance on reward schemes and other 'control methods' in the classroom. (the book also goes on to suggest other, more appropriate ways of acknowledging positive behaviour).

The most commonly used motivational strategies in schools usually involve some kind of...

I wanted to send a message out today with news about our various available products…

But I can’t.

I have been following what happened in Ukraine for the past few weeks and while this isn't a forum for me to share any kind of political views I do want to say a few words on this. I'm finding it tough to keep going business as usual when people are facing such violence.

Yesterday I...

When I was training to be a teacher I worked for a short time at quite a rough comprehensive school in the south of England. 

One of my classes was a year 9 science group and one of the students - we’ll call him Sean - ambled into our first scheduled lesson late, as predicted by my mentor, the usual class teacher.

Sean looked very intrigued by the student teacher standing awkwardly...

Would you like to know a guaranteed method for raising engagement in your lessons?

It can be summed up literally in just one single word and yet it holds the key to instant participation. 

Every student responds to this without exception. 

With this in place you can have your entire class, even those students who are usually totally disinterested, literally begging...