Pathway Placement: Behaviour and Motivation

My experience at an SEN school was really beneficial and a real eye-opener.The school’s atmosphere was calm and pleasant. I was also very fortunate to have been placed in a school whose staff and pupils made me feel welcomed and valued instantly.

It is fair to mention that although it was in a secondary school, it did feel like a primary school. This might be due to the fact that classes were grouped not by age but by difficulty levels or disabilities, and the majority worked at a primary school level.

Though the school had a high percentage of children with some sort of disability and special needs this wasn’t reflected so much in the classroom I was placed as it did in other classrooms. The class I was in consisted of year 7s, 8s and 9s and had mostly behavioural issues. The ability range of the children I was able to teach and observe varied from year 1-7, so it was at times very challenging, especially when it came to teaching and differentiating correctly.

Something that really stood out in this placement was how behaviour issues were resolved. As our class had the highest behavioural incidents and the pupils were in fact adolescents verging on teenage years, bad behaviour was dealt with quite severely. Each lesson each pupil would have a passport which will give you the option to analyse how they have behaved in class. In this case the learners were also given a chance to self-assess and evaluate how they did and how their behaviour impacted the classroom environment. Their “score” would then determine whether or not they made “star time” on a Friday afternoon. Star time was the end of week treat were children could choose their activity. This would encourage better behaviour as the pupils knew that their good behaviour would amount to a reward of their choice. Parents/Guardians were also thoroughly involved. Teachers would ring home if expected behaviour was not met or was overall very appalling.

Throughout the school there seemed to be a unified theme this term which was based on Alice in Wonderland. Our class had previously been involved in a tea party and were currently watching the original Alice in Wonderland film – as they had already watched the new adaptation. In Philosophy for children they would use Alice in wonderland to help them construct a book on things they are glad about. This also helped promote good behaviour as it focused on positive thinking leaving no room for negative encouragement. Chambers (2011) suggests older children tend to enjoy dramatising scripted and improvised performances. They did this to help them distinguish the different types of emotions we can have and whether they were in fact positive or negative. This helped them further to develop their writing on the things that make them glad.

Overall I had a truly inspirational, very valuable experience as I learnt about strategies which were efficient and effective in managing behaviour and motivation in the classroom. 

References:

Chambers, A. (2011) Tell Me: Children, Reading and Talk; The Reading Environment; How Adults Help Children Enjoy Books. Stroud; The Thimble Press.

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