There will undoubtedly be students who don’t understand, students who don’t want to understand, and students who finish before everyone else. This will cause you problems unless you’re prepared for it by having strategies and systems in place to prevent and deal with disruptions. A student who needs support, for example, will demand your attention by shouting out, getting out...

Here are nine fundamental classroom management strategies which will have relevance regardless of the particular classroom problem you’re dealing with. Remembering these two important factors will help you succeed when confronting challenging students.

1. Be Vigilant

Teaching is a hard job. Sometimes there is so much going on in the classroom that we might miss a note being passed around,...

Students who can’t stand not having the ‘last word’ can be some of the most testing; they have an answer for everything.  Often it doesn’t even need to be a verbal retort, as a defiant roll of the eyes can get right under your skin.  Here are a few of my strategies for dealing with students who always feel that they need to be the last person to speak....

Here’s a classroom management strategy for dealing with those pesky students who like to disrupt your lessons with immature, attention-seeking behaviour. 

I’ve often found that those students who ‘need’ to show off and crave attention benefit from being given the opportunity to do exactly that – albeit in a controlled way.  Please understand that this...

1. Give latecomers as little attention as possible. Calmly, and without fuss, take their name (assuming you don’t already know it) and confirm that they are late: 

“John, you’re ten minutes late.” 

2. Direct them to their seat.  Quickly direct them to a seat and give them something to occupy them – they could watch the remainder of an...

Children need to be very clear about the consequences of their use of unacceptable language.  If there is no school policy in place then use your own – and stick to it so that they are in no doubt that certain behaviour is not acceptable. 

The oft-quoted strategy of staying calm applies equally well here.  No matter how profane the offence (and you don’t...

There are always going to be students who try to make us feel uncomfortable by asking increasingly personal, inappropriate, or just plain silly questions. This is especially common when we get a new class to teach. Whether it’s the start of term or a cover lesson it is a scenario which must be dealt with swiftly – otherwise your control over the class can be severely eroded. 

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Here are a few classroom management strategies to help when working with a very challenging group of students. 

1. Divide and conquer. Split the group according to your seating plan. Tell them that if they want to sit with their friends they have to earn that privilege. Use a calendar to show the number of lessons there are left this year and tell them that as long as they work...

1. TARGETS 

Overview: 

Many students find it daunting and off-putting when presented with what they perceive to be 'too much' work as part of a lesson task- particularly text-based work. The idea of 'Targets' is to give students 'chunked' tasks - an achievable amount of work which must complete in a set amount of time 

Instructions: 

Targets can be issued to students...

This is one of those seemingly unimportant management issues which is often swept under the carpet by a teacher who is frantically trying to concentrate efforts on more serious issues. In a lively class, when you’ve got Mary and Matilda cat fighting, Liam smoking, Carl spitting on Graham, Steven chucking text books at Johnny, and Paul making lewd comments about the support...