This book is available directly from Crown House Publishing here
As all who work in schools know, student behaviour can make a brilliant day dreadful or a dreadful day brilliant. This is an incredibly helpful book for any teachers looking for more brilliant days, from Early Career Teachers to more experienced teachers who are looking to refresh their approach.
Baker’s years of teaching experience bring not just masses of useful knowledge, but also funny, real world anecdotes that make this an enjoyable as well as useful read. He is realistic about the realities of teaching, the obstacles that arise, and the negative impact dealing with difficult behaviour can have on a teacher’s entire life. This is a book that shares, sympathises and suggests solutions, rather than dictating from on high.
With clear real-world scenarios and examples that can be directly applied to any classroom, Baker leads us through topics such as Values, Expectations and Routines. Modelling the behaviour he is extolling, as he takes the reader on a fun and informative journey with him. The specific, practical suggestions offered include how to best word requests, effectively utilise your body language and how to calmly deal with verbal aggression.
Alongside these practical tips and tricks are entertaining and thought-provoking considerations of a number of subjects surrounding student behaviour – from the importance of maintaining the idealism of youth to the ineffectiveness of draconian measures.
A worthwhile read that puts the teacher firmly in charge.
This book is available directly from Crown House Publishing here
Written by Stephen Baker, That Behaviour Book: The simple truth about teaching children is an essential book for every teacher, providing an engaging and unique mix of anecdotes, practical strategies and moral imperatives for successful and child-centred behaviour management.
What kind of teacher are you? What values, beliefs and principles do successful teachers have and how do they sustain these in the face of challenging pupil behaviour?
In this timely book, Stephen Baker contends that rigid punishment systems weaponize young people’s defiance against them and that punishment doesn’t work. He believes that teachers need to take responsibility for behaviour and to lead it, not just ‘manage’ it, that we need to love the kids (even if we don’t like them), that children are people, that we are an event in their lives, and that teaching is a relationship-based activity.
With each chapter followed by engaging ‘takeaway tasks’, That Behaviour Book will allow teachers to rapidly improve both their practice and their relationships with pupils and classes. The book looks at the values that will sustain you as a teacher, how routines will help you teach better and what ‘positive expectations’ really mean, making child-centred relational practice easy to apply in the classroom. Teachers will have a more realistic appreciation of their own situation and of the context in which they teach. In short, this book will help teachers learn how to get the very best out of their pupils.
That Behaviour Book is an essential guide for both the beginner and the more experienced teacher. Its unique tone makes it an indispensable companion for the busy teacher, providing a sense of connection, challenge and reassurance all at once. Stephen Baker’s anecdotes, drawn from his years as a pupil, teacher and trainer pack an emotional punch and are often hilarious.
Stephen Baker spent 17 years in teaching, before working with local authorities and for the National Strategies as a regional adviser in Yorkshire and the Humber. He is now a behaviour consultant and trainer, passionate about helping teachers to succeed. Stephen lives with Sian in Anglesey where he spends his free time having fun with their children and grandchildren.
