Professional Practice
Standard 4: Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

A section of the Placement Assessment Report by the supervising teacher evaluating my teaching practice during my final placement.

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In order to manage challenging behaviour in the classroom, I focused on establishing effective preventative strategies to curtail the incidence of challenging behaviour, as recommended by Garette (2014), CESE (2020), and Terada (2019). To implement preventative strategies effectively, I developed professional relationships with my students by observing them at recess time, talking to them at home time, and greeting them in the morning. These informal interactions during playtime informed my professional knowledge further and proved to be an influential strategy which aligned the classroom climate with students’ needs. Knowledge about student interests, learning styles, cultures, and languages facilitated my provision of engaging learning experiences while effectively reducing challenging behaviour.

Moreover, collaboration with other teachers and students established a democratic style within the classroom where students felt valued and took ownership of their choices, which curtailed the incidence of challenging behaviours.

Specifically, I managed challenging behaviour with the effective application of preventive strategies. I intentionally highlighted positive behaviours most by providing behaviour-specific praise, as recommended by Garrette (2014), and acknowledged good choices by using the established practices of the classroom, like merit rewards and use of happy and sad faces. This strategy proved to be very effective as it highlighted appropriate behaviour without pinpointing unacceptable behaviour explicitly and maintained a positive and safe climate for focused learning.