Classroom Conflict 3: Showtime Mindset for managing children
Children behave challengingly mainly for task or situation avoidance and attention, and the post explains Showtime, the emotional equilibrium staff hold while talking a distressed child down to safety.
Classroom Conflict 2: The Five Maxims for Effective Classroom Communications
Behaviour systems need a value base, not just points of law. The Five Maxims describe how staff treat children with dignity and respect, so holding a child stays an absolute last resort.
Classroom Conflict 1: Being Alert and Decisive
First in a series on classroom conflict, this short piece argues staff need a pre-planned, practised response and mental models, responding rather than reacting, while treating pupils with dignity and respect throughout.
The Five Maxims for Effective Communication in the Classroom
The five maxims are to listen with all your senses, ask rather than tell, give context, offer options and allow a second chance. A teacher describes using them daily with special needs children.
Positive Handling By The Numbers #6: Duty of Care
Duty of care is set out as the concept behind any decision to step in and create safety. Cases include a learning assistant badly hurt lifting a fallen Christmas tree off children.
Positive Handling by the Numbers #5: Five Steps to Persuasion
Refusing to leave a classroom is the example used to show the Persuasion Sequence. Staff make a firm request rather than a command, explain why, then offer both positive and negative options.
Positive Handling by the Numbers #5: Five Values for Effective Interactions in the Classroom
When a child refuses a reasonable request and says you cannot touch me, the post asks how the situation was allowed to build, and sets out values that favour non-escalation over de-escalation.
Positive Handling by the Numbers #4: Forewarned about (some) Four-year-olds is Forearmed
A 2012 London incident in which a Reception child put two teachers in hospital shows the damage a four-year-old can do, and why plans must consider a wide range of risks.