The 3 C's Approach to Managing Behaviour Doesn't Work - Sam Strickland
Audio Brief
Show transcript
This episode critiques common multi-warning school disciplinary systems, highlighting their ineffectiveness and proposing a centralized alternative.
There are three key takeaways from this discussion. First, multi-warning systems are often ineffective, as they encourage students to test boundaries and significantly increase teacher workload. Second, effective disciplinary systems prioritize the certainty and consistency of consequences over their severity. Third, centralizing sanctions like detentions ensures fair application of consequences, allowing teachers to focus on instruction.
These multi-step systems encourage students to misbehave up to the final warning, eroding classroom standards and wasting valuable teaching time. Teachers spend excessive time policing low-level disruption instead of instructing, creating an unsustainable burden.
Behavior management should focus on the certainty of a consequence rather than its length or severity. A simple, clear system with a guaranteed consequence after one warning makes behavior a conscious choice for students and reduces classroom disruption.
Decentralized detentions, managed by individual teachers, often lead to inefficiency and inconsistency. Centralized enforcement by a senior team removes administrative burden, ensures fairness, and streamlines the application of consequences.
Applying these principles can transform behavior management, fostering more productive learning environments.
Episode Overview
- A critique of the common "C1, 2, 3, 4" multi-warning disciplinary systems used in schools, highlighting their ineffectiveness and unsustainability.
- An exploration of how these systems contribute to lost teaching time and increase teacher workload by forcing them to manage constant low-level disruption.
- A detailed explanation of an alternative, centralized behavior point system that prioritizes the certainty and consistency of consequences over their severity.
- A discussion on the failure of decentralized detentions, where individual teachers are responsible for enforcement, leading to inefficiency and inconsistency.
Key Concepts
- The speakers analyze the inherent flaws in multi-warning disciplinary systems, arguing that they allow students to "game the system" by misbehaving up to the final warning, thereby eroding classroom standards and wasting valuable teaching time. They discuss how this creates an unsustainable burden on teachers, who spend more time policing behavior than teaching.
- The conversation contrasts decentralized detentions (managed by individual teachers) with centralized detentions (managed by a pastoral or senior leadership team). Decentralized systems are criticized for being inefficient, inconsistent, and creating personal conflict between teachers and students. Centralized systems are proposed as a solution that ensures fairness, reduces teacher workload, and makes consequences certain.
- A core theme is that behavior management should be built on the principle of "certainty over severity." The speakers advocate for a simple, clear system where a consequence is guaranteed after a single warning, rather than a complex, multi-stage process with severe but uncertain punishments. This approach frames behavior as a conscious choice for students.
Quotes
- At 00:27 - "but if there was three options before you got kicked out, you push the boundaries." - The interviewer explains that students naturally test limits when given multiple warnings, undermining the system's effectiveness.
- At 02:24 - "in any given half an hour of a lesson nationally, 8 to 9 minutes is lost through poor behavior." - The expert cites a study to quantify the significant impact of low-level disruption on learning time across the country.
- At 04:37 - "I'm concerned, or where my focus is, is the certainty and the consistency of that sanction happening as opposed to the length of the sanction." - The expert outlines the core philosophy of his school's effective behavior system, emphasizing predictability over punishment severity.
Takeaways
- Multi-warning behavior systems are often ineffective as they encourage students to test boundaries and can create an unsustainable workload for teachers.
- An effective disciplinary system prioritizes the certainty and consistency of a consequence, rather than its length or severity.
- Centralizing sanctions (like after-school detentions) removes the administrative burden from classroom teachers, allowing them to focus on teaching while ensuring consequences are applied fairly.
- Simplifying the disciplinary process (e.g., one warning followed by an automatic consequence) makes behavior a clear choice for students and reduces classroom disruption.
