Positive student behaviours are best developed and supported
through:
·
relationship-based whole-school practices
·
classroom practices
·
clearly communicated behavioural expectations.
Some students present challenging behaviour and require extra
support and interventions to address this behaviour and to develop positive
behaviours.
Behaviour expectations, approaches to promoting positive
behaviour, and consequences for breaching behavioural expectations should be
set out in a school’s Student engagement policy
Defining challenging
behaviour
Schools have the ability to define their own set of behavioural
expectations, so there is no common set of behaviours that can be universally
regarded as challenging.
However, grounds for suspension and expulsion are set and common
to all Victorian government schools.
In most schools and for most teachers, challenging behaviour can
generally be understood as something that either interferes with the safety or
learning of the student or other students, or interferes with the safety of
school staff.
Examples of challenging behaviour include:
·
Withdrawn behaviours such as
shyness, rocking, staring, anxiety, school phobia, truancy, social
isolation or hand flapping
·
Disruptive behaviours such as
being out-of-seat, calling out in class, tantrums, swearing, screaming or
refusing to follow instructions
·
Violent and/or unsafe behaviours such
as head banging, kicking, biting, punching, fighting, running away, smashing
equipment or furniture/fixtures
·
Inappropriate social behaviours such
as inappropriate conversations, stealing, being
over-affectionate, inappropriate touching or masturbation.
Influences on student behaviour
There are many potential influences on student behaviour, and
many factors that can lead to behaviour that is challenging for schools to deal
with. These include:
·
biophysical
factors, such as medical conditions or disabilities
·
psychological
factors, including emotional trauma or lack of social skills
·
behavioural/social
factors, including where a student’s problem behaviour has been learned
through reinforcement, consequences or adaptation to social practices. For
example, a student with a learning difficulty repeatedly misbehaves knowing
that he/she will be removed from the class and this will avoid his/her learning
difficulty being exposed.
·
historical community factors,
including for Koorie students whose family member/s had difficult, sometimes
traumatic, experiences of school and government agencies
·
cultural
factors, for example Koorie community ‘Sorry Business’
·
student
group dynamics, such
as bullying and teasing, cliques or student apathy or hostility.
·
environmental
factors, for example the level of classroom noise or classroom seating
arrangements
·
classroom
organisation issues, such as inconsistent routines, inadequate
materials or obliviousness to cultural differences
·
teacher
behaviour, for example boring or disorganised lessons, over-reaction to
misbehaviour or over-reliance on punishment.
In many cases, there is no single “cause” of challenging
behaviour, but it is the result of several factors operating in combination.
Behavioural triggers
When seeking to understand challenging behaviour, it is
important to understand the role of behavioural triggers.
Triggers are actions or events that play a role in prompting
particular behaviours. Triggers can be used deliberately by teachers to
elicit correct student behaviour. For example, if a teacher wants
students to listen, he or she will generally call for their attention
(sometimes using a signal) and wait for them to be quiet, thereby triggering
the desired attentive behaviour.
Sometimes actions or
events in the classroom may be a trigger for some students to exhibit
challenging behaviour. For instance, a teacher’s instruction to students
such as “put your books away and take out a
piece of paper so we can start writing” might act as a trigger for a student with
learning difficulties, who may exhibit challenging behaviour in order to avoid
completing the work, which could potentially reveal that they are struggling.
Whether or not a
particular action or event is a trigger for challenging behaviour will depend
on the individual student and the environment or setting in which it takes
place. The instruction above might produce very different behaviour if it is
shouted in a large, noisy classroom rather than made in calm voice to a small,
attentive and quiet group of students.
A crucial element of any response to a
student's challenging behaviours is identifying the triggers for that
particular student. When triggers are identified, teachers and other
school staff are then able to more easily avoid these and also can start
to develop and use other triggers to elicit positive behaviour. The
Department’s professional learning program on managing challenging behaviour contains
more information and advice on triggers for challenging behaviour. See: Managing
challenging behaviour
No comments:
Post a Comment