All CPD is based on solution-focused principles, concentrating on what is going well/well enough as a starting point for next steps. In this way staff are helped to feel empowered as they plan ‘what next?’ To maximise value for money and help build sustainable professional growth, Steve is always more than happy to arrange follow-up sessions with individuals, e.g. via email. They will also have access to free-to-download resources from the website.

Creating a win-win classroom

Effective learning takes place in classrooms where there is mutual respect, a sense of safety for all, and a shared desire to learn. This course explores practical ways to achieve this. Areas covered include:

• Using contracting to increase genuine engagement in setting and maintaining a positive classroom environment.
• The 5 R’s – rights, responsibilities, routines, rules and relationships.
• From Dependence to Independence to Interdependence – and how to support indivdiuals and groups at the different stages.

Participants will:

• be familiar with the contracting process and have planned how to implement it in their classroom.
• considered how a 5 R’s approach could be implemented within their own classroom.
• review the importance of routines as a powerful way to teach appropriate behaviour and reinforce expectations.
• revisit ideas around rewards and sanctions.

The intended outcome for children and young people will be:

A greater awareness of their responsibility in helping create a peaceful, purposeful classroom.

Managing the difficult classroom

Sometimes the mix of pupils in a class can seem like a Molotov cocktail. Consequently staff stress levels can be high as they feel frustrated about spending too much time dealing with behaviour and not enough on teaching and learning.

Areas covered include:

• Using the least-to-most-intrusive continuum of responses to behaviour.
• Reducing reactivity and increasing responsiveness to situations.
• Getting them to behave – or creating conditions that promote appropriate behaviour?
• Generating a stronger ‘buy-in’ from pupils to help create a more positive climate for learning.

Participants will:

• Conduct an analysis in order to make the challenge more manageable.
• Identify priority behaviours to be addressed – and consider how to continue to reinforce what appropriate behaviours already exist.
• Compile a range of strategies covering the ‘least-to-most intrusive’ continuum.

The intended outcome for children and young people will be:

A shift towards seeking recognition for success in learning and appropriate behaviour, and greater cohesion in the classroom.

Minimising low-level disruptive behaviour, maximising learning

Pupils engage in low-level behaviour for a variety of reasons. There is no one-fix cure, but, with greater understanding of these reasons, staff can better match their strategies and approaches in order to increase pupil engagement in learning. Areas covered include:

• The core needs all pupils have – and how they can drive low-level disruptive behaviour.
• Common behaviour – e.g. talking over the teacher, delayed starts to work, tapping, banging, etc.
• Ignoring, distracting, addressing – when and how?

Participants will:

• Connect low-level behaviour with core needs.
• Devise strategies for specific behaviour in their classroom that help address these needs.

The intended outcome for children and young people will be:

A stronger focus on teaching and learning and a more confident teacher leading them.

Getting off to a flying start

Behaviour management for those new to the classroom, including NQTs and GTPs

Starting out as a teacher is a daunting prospect, and for many, if not all, new teachers managing behaviour is a key source of worry and stress. This course will enable participants to get the foundations in place for promoting behaviour for learning.

Areas to be covered include:

• Establishing expectations – and doing so with pupils rather than doing it to pupils.
• Rights, responsibilities, routines, rules and relationships.
• Common behavioural issues – and how to address them.
• The teacher as a leader of children and young people.
• Personal well-being – minimising stress, maximising effectiveness.

Participants will:

• Be able to create effective classroom contracts.
• Have a clear set of routines and consider how to train their pupils in them.
• Have greater confidence in minimising behavioural issues and addressing them when they do occur.
• Have a greater understanding of their strengths as well as their Achilles’ heels in the classroom.

The intended outcome for children and young people will be:

A stronger focus on teaching and learning and a more confident teacher to lead them.

Another brick in the wall

Improving pupil behaviour by supporting their emotional development

The Behaviour Wall is a powerful tool that enables staff to take a step back from troubling behaviour and consider what developmental needs might be underpinning it.

Areas to be covered include:

• The stages of development – from birth to the teenage years.
• What promotes growth – and what can hinder it?
• Filling in the gaps – fostering behavioural change by responding to pupils’ developmental needs using proven strategies and approaches.

Behaviour Wall participants will:

• Have a better understanding of the needs underpinning troubling behaviour.
• Have a range of strategies for addressing these needs.
• Leave with a range of resources designed to promote emotional growth and behavioural change, both for whole class and individual pupils.
• Consider how the ideas could be used, e.g. to increase parental support.

The intended outcome for children and young people will be:

Support through more precisely targeted interventions.

Effective support for vulnerable pupils with emotional difficulties

Increasing numbers of pupils are vulnerable for a variety of reasons. This course is designed to help staff better understand the main areas of vulnerability, underlying factors and explore different strategies and approaches to address these.

Areas to be covered include:

• Attachment theory – and how it applies to the classroom.
• Grief and loss.
• Creating a secure base within the classroom.
• Supporting pupils’ recovery from trauma.

Participants will:

• Have considered the significant influence key emotional factors, including poor attachment and grief and loss, can have on behaviour, learning and relationships.
• Have a clear understanding of the main principles of attachment theory and considered practical implications for their context.

The intended outcome for children and young people will be:

School staff able to offer understanding and practical support during stressful and sensitive times.

Staff well-being

Education is going through unprecedented change. And, like all change, this brings additional stresses and tensions, as well as opportunities for growth. The material covered is also applicable to supporting young people through the many changes they experience.

Areas to be covered include:

• Developing an emotionally robust school community.
• Typical responses to change – driver behaviours and their strengths and limitations.
• Thoughts-feelings-behaviour – how they interact within one another and how to harness this process in order to function more effectively.

Participants will:

• Have a greater awareness of how they react to stress and have considered ways to reduce its impact.
• Have considered how to improve team/school support and effectiveness.

Developing greater consistency of behaviour management

Consistency can appear to be an illusive Holy Grail for many schools when it comes to behaviour management. With as many individual styles, sets of beliefs and values as there are staff. So, what do we mean by consistency, and how can we strengthen what already exists?

Areas to be covered include:

• Control versus authority.
• Using the functional fluency model to be in charge more effectively.
• Individual styles of providing structure and nurture.
• What is your Achilles’ heel when it comes to behaviour?
• Strengthening consistency of behaviour management across the school/team.

Participants will:

• Have a better understanding of the values and beliefs that underpin their approaches to behaviour.
• Have an increased awareness of what they do well and create an action plan for doing more of it.

The intended outcome for children and young people will be:

Staff who are optimising their skills and qualities to provide even better support for their needs.

Content from the above is also combined in various forms for other courses, including:

• Training for midday supervisors
• Staff well-being
• Creating a win-win classroom
• Making better sense of behaviour
• I’m OK. You’re OK – using transactional analysis to improve teaching, learning, behaviour and relationships.
• Specific CPD for teachers at various stages in their careers – second–fifth year; fifth year-plus (for those teachers who do not want to progress through leadership levels and are keen to consolidate and develop their classroom practice).