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��Session 2 – Creating a positive and respectful classroom environment��

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Session overview:

It’s important to create a culture of trust and respect within your classroom that supports all pupils to succeed.

To support you to do this, in this session you will explore:

Motivation
Praise
Building trust and respect

Approximate session length: 30 minutes

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Motivation�

Pupils are motivated by extrinsic factors (related to rewards) and intrinsic factors (related to their identity and values).

Extrinsic factors
Intrinsic factors

As teachers, our long-term aim is to help our pupils move from needing extrinsic motivation to being intrinsically motivated to work and learn.

Extrinsic factors

Extrinsic factors are external motivators such as rewards and punishments. Therefore, an extrinsically motivated pupil is likely to persist at a challenging task because they want to receive a reward such as a house point, sticker, or praise, or they want to avoid punishment, like a detention or extra homework.

Intrinsic factors

Intrinsic factors are internal motivators which relate to an individual’s identity and values. As a teacher, you are a key role model, who can influence the attitudes, values and, consequently, behaviours of your pupils. For example, you might emphasise the value of persevering in the face of adversity because in order to improve at something, you must practise areas that you find challenging. Therefore, an intrinsically motivated pupil is likely to persist at a challenging task because they know you need to practise to improve as a result of the values you have been promoting.

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Praise�

As a teacher, we can demonstrate our consistently high expectations by acknowledging and praising pupil effort and emphasising the progress pupils are making. This can help to communicate shared values that improve both the classroom and school culture.

Within the classroom, we can use praise to positively reinforce expectations by recognising pupils’ hard work and effort, sharing and celebrate their work or behaviour, and indirectly preventing low-level disruption.

Outside of the classroom, pupil praise can be a positive way to engage parents and carers in their child’s education by proactively highlighting their efforts and successes.

Whether used within or outside of the classroom, praise can be incredibly motivating for pupils.

The difference between acknowledgement and praise

Acknowledging and praising pupil effort and emphasising progress being made is a great way to extrinsically motivate pupils. Research also suggests that praise can help to build pupils’ intrinsic motivation too (Henderlong & Lepper, 2002).

Sometimes it can be tempting to praise pupils for every correct decision they make in the classroom – from entering quietly to picking up their pens to completing a task you set them. However, overusing praise can make it seem disingenuous to pupils, thereby causing it to lose power and effect.

To avoid overuse, it can be helpful to keep in mind the difference between acknowledgement and praise.

Acknowledgement is when you recognise or thank a pupil for meeting your expectations. You may use acknowledgement when a pupil follows your instructions or carries out the routines you have set to the standard that you expect. For example, “Thanks Suzy for lining up silently”, or, “I can see 80% of us are ready to start”.

This is different from praising a pupil for following your expectations – for example, “Well done to Suzy for lining up silently – that’s fantastic”. It’s not a good idea to praise in this way, because it sends out an implicit message that you are in some way impressed that Suzy has met your expectations and didn’t expect her to.

It’s best to reserve praise and words like ‘fantastic’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘great’ to emphasise pupil effort and progress being made. For example, when a pupil has worked hard in class and made good progress, you might say, “Mohammed has used a fronted adverbial and included the right punctuation – fantastic work Mohammed!”.

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Precise praise�

Praising independence�“Great effort. You used the resources to complete that question without asking for help.
Praising one-to-one correspondence in counting�“Well done – you counted each object once this time.”
Praising passing a ball correctly in rugby�“That’s much better. You passed backwards every time – brilliant work.”

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Precise praise in action�

Watch the following video of a teacher using precise praise.

As you watch, notice how the teacher uses both acknowledgement (to highlight when their expectations have been met) and precise praise (to highlight pupil effort or progress).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOhpOCVrYbQ&feature=emb_title

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Engaging parents and carers�

Engaging parents or carers in their child’s education by sharing successes or achievements with them is another way to extrinsically motivate pupils.

It can also help to build relationships with carers and families which can further improve pupil’s motivation, behaviour and academic success.

There are many ways of doing this and often schools have their own policies on engaging with parents and carers, so speak with your mentor to explore the approaches you could take.

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Building trust and respect�

Listen to Bea Stevenson talk here about the role that respect and empathy play in this process and consider the following questions:

Why is your own self-awareness important?
How are feelings linked to behaviour?
How can you help pupils to self-regulate their emotions and consequently, their behaviour?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLbePLTQNXI&feature=emb_title

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Reflection�

Think about your teaching practice and consider the following questions. Record your reflections.

Would you describe your classroom environment as trusting and respectful? If so, why? If not, why not?
What steps have you already taken to develop trust and respect in your classroom?
What further steps could you take?