The Government’s school behaviour chief has called for a return on children putting their hands up in class to answer a question. Ludicrous as it may sound, this practice has been banned in some schools.

Hands up has been going out of fashion for a long time. For the last 10 years, there has been this crazy idea that it only encourages certain children to answer questions or that the same children always answer the teacher. Tom Bennett, an author of several books on classroom management, has claimed recently that teachers are being training to use alternative methods of selecting children to answer questions.

One of the techniques is called the ‘lollipop method’ which involved writing the names of every child on a stick and selecting one at random from a box. Some students were told to hold up the answers to questions on a mini whiteboard.

Bennet states that ‘behavioural management’ is an art and often, teachers go into classrooms without armour; behavioural management skills are not being taught. New teachers don’t have proper strategies for dealing with difficult behaviour.

Of course teachers have their common sense, but in addition to that, new ‘teaching gimmicks’ have been given to new teachers to deal with their classrooms.  Most of these techniques are unfortunately not working.

It is very important for all teachers to build strong relationships with students, but remember to include very strong boundaries, as boundaries are extremely important in order to help children develop great habits.

Dylan William of the Institute of Education at London University said ‘only a quarter of pupils consistently put their hands up whilst the others completely switch off’.

That is food for thought isn’t it?

Until next time,

Elisa