Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide to Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management and Colleague Support

Citation

Rogers, B. (2015). Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide to Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management and Colleague Support (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Chapter Summary

The fourth edition runs to about 350 pages: an introduction and eight chapters. Rogers, an Australian teacher, mentor-teacher and consultant, writes in the first person from his work team-teaching alongside primary and secondary colleagues, and the introduction explains that every case example and snatch of dialogue in the book comes from that mentoring, with names and details changed. He also states plainly what the book is not: a survey of theoretical models of discipline. He places his own approach in the middle of the continuum that runs from strong teacher control to non-directive approaches, and points readers who want the models themselves to other texts. A notation used throughout is explained at the start: an ellipsis in brackets marks "tactical pausing", the brief deliberate pause a teacher makes to gain attention and let a direction register.

Introduction: I never thought I'd become a teacher

An autobiographical opening about the author's own unhappy schooling in England in the 1950s and early 1960s, his departure from school at fifteen and his later career as a teacher. It closes with the notes on tactical pausing, on the real origin of the case material, and on the book's interest in two questions for every practice: why a teacher should lead in a given way (values) and how to do it (utility).

Chapter 1: The dynamics of classroom behaviour

The opening chapter frames behaviour as reciprocal: the teacher's behaviour and the student's affect each other, always in front of an audience of peers, so "every discipline transaction is a social transaction". Through extended dialogues it contrasts overly vigilant, non-vigilant and "relaxed vigilant" management, and introduces the distinction between a student's primary behaviour and the "secondary behaviours" (sighs, pouting, muttered replies) that often provoke teachers more than the original problem. It also covers the teacher's "explanatory style" and stress, "bad-day syndrome", the cooperative 70–80 per cent of a class whose goodwill a teacher must keep, the maxim "don't smile until Christmas", and what a teacher can and cannot control. It ends with reflection questions.

Chapter 2: New class, new year – the establishment phase of behaviour management

The first meetings with a class, which Chapter 1 already flags as crucial: establishing clear rules, routines and norms from the start. Chapter 1 refers here for the collaborative classroom agreement, and the companion website's materials for this chapter concern school-wide rules and moving between phases of the year.

Chapter 3: The language of behaviour management and discipline

By the book's own cross-references, this is where the practices and skills of "behaviour leadership" are treated in detail, including how a teacher initiates and sustains whole-class attention and focus. Gerald Haigh, reviewing the third edition in New Teachers (quoted on the publisher's page), singles out the book's attention to language: tone, word choice and body language.

Chapter 4: Effective teaching – fundamental understanding and skills

The link between behaviour and the quality of teaching itself. Chapter 1 points forward to this chapter whenever it argues that good management depends on effective teaching and well-planned lessons.

Chapter 5: Management beyond the classroom – behaviour consequences

Consequences for behaviour and the management of students outside the lesson. The companion website's materials for the chapter concern detention, calming and bullying, and Gerald Haigh's review of the previous (third) edition noted added material on bullying.

Chapter 6: Challenging children and children with emotional and behavioural difficulties

The chapter for the small number of students whose behaviour is persistently challenging. Chapter 1 refers to it for students who use behaviour to provoke or control and for the limits of any single approach. Haigh's review of the third edition mentions material on teaching children with autism spectrum disorder in mainstream schools and on working with challenging students, and the companion website adds readings on ADHD, autism and emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Chapter 7: Managing behaviour in ourselves and others

The teacher's own emotions, above all anger: Chapter 1 refers here for how to communicate frustration and anger appropriately. The companion materials include a case study on anger management and work with parents.

Chapter 8: When things get difficult – hard class, hard times

Difficult classes and colleague support, the third element of the book's subtitle. The introduction refers to this chapter for peer mentoring and reflective professional practice, and the companion reading for it concerns the factors that affect colleague support.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Chapter 1

• Behaviour leadership: Rogers's term for leading, guiding and correcting students, preferred to "control", which he argues a teacher cannot exercise over others.
• Relaxed vigilance: noticing and addressing behaviour calmly and consistently, between an anxious, overly vigilant style and a non-vigilant one.
• Primary and secondary behaviour: the original disruption versus the attitude a student shows when corrected; the advice is not to be drawn into the second.
• Explanatory style: the beliefs ("students must respect me") through which a teacher interprets behaviour, which can raise stress.
• Tactical pausing: a brief deliberate pause to gain attention and let a direction take effect.

Chapters 2–4

• Establishment phase: the first weeks with a new class, when rules and routines are set.
• Language of discipline: what a teacher says, and how, when correcting behaviour.
• Effective teaching: the quality of lessons as a foundation of good behaviour.

Chapters 5–8

• Behaviour consequences: responses that follow behaviour, including those outside the classroom.
• Emotional and behavioural difficulties: students whose behaviour needs longer-term, individual support.
• Colleague support: teachers supporting each other, including peer mentoring, when classes become hard.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Grounded in real classrooms. The case examples come from the author's own mentoring work, many as extended dialogues between teacher and students. The reviews on the publisher's page (Haigh in New Teachers; Sandi Tait-McCutcheon in the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies) both stress the realism of the scenarios; Haigh, writing about the third edition, calls the analysis of them a "forensic deconstruction".
• Attention to language. A whole chapter, and much of the dialogue elsewhere, is given to the actual words, tone and body language of correction. The secondary-behaviour discussion in Chapter 1 shows how a teacher's reply can escalate or defuse an exchange.
• The teacher's own side. Stress, explanatory style, anger and bad days are treated as part of behaviour management (Chapters 1 and 7), and colleague support is named in the subtitle and has a chapter of its own.
• Reflection and support material. Chapter 1 ends with reflection questions keyed to its pages, and the companion website offers videos of Rogers in classrooms, podcasts answering teachers' questions, tools and further reading arranged by chapter.

Limitations

• Not a book about theory or research. The introduction says explicitly that it does not discuss the theoretical models of discipline, and the case material is the author's own practice. Readers who need the evidence base must go elsewhere.
• Personal and discursive style. The book is written in a conversational first person with frequent asides, quotations and anecdotes. It reads easily but is less suited to quick reference than a book of numbered techniques.
• Australian and British settings. Year groups, school structures and practices such as detention reflect schools in Australia and the UK; readers elsewhere will need to translate some details.
• Chapter titles are broad. The public outline gives only eight chapter titles, so a course that wants to assign a particular topic (rules, consequences, anger) should check the section headings in a copy.

Where It Fits in the Course

Among the classroom-practice books, Rogers is the practical first read on behaviour. Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion 3.0 is also practical and aimed at new teachers, but it is organised as a set of named techniques across lesson preparation, questioning, routines and behaviour. Rogers is narrower in scope and gives more space to relationships, language and the teacher's own emotions. The two work well together. Saphier, Haley-Speca and Gower's The Skillful Teacher is a broader reference on instruction for reflective professional learning, and Carol Ann Tomlinson's The Differentiated Classroom deals with adapting teaching to diverse learners; both cover ground that Rogers's Chapter 4 only touches on.

For the research behind behaviour management, Sabornie and Espelage's Handbook of Classroom Management is an edited collection of research reviews and the natural place to test the practices Rogers recommends. Francis, Taylor and Tereshchenko's Reassessing 'Ability' Grouping is a research monograph on how pupils are grouped, a different question but one that bears on classroom climate. Read these after Rogers, not before.

How to Use This Book

The book suits student teachers before and during placements, newly qualified teachers, and mentors who support them. No background is needed; the more classroom experience a reader has, the more the dialogues will mean.

• Start with the Introduction and Chapter 1, which set out the vocabulary (behaviour leadership, relaxed vigilance, secondary behaviour) that the rest of the book uses.
• Read Chapters 2–4 before a placement or a new school year. The establishment phase, the language of discipline and effective teaching are the preventive core.
• Keep Chapters 5–6 for when they are needed, especially when a particular student or consequence becomes an issue.
• Read Chapters 7–8 early rather than late. The material on managing one's own anger and on colleague support is most useful before a hard term, not in the middle of one.

Work through the reflection questions with a mentor or a fellow student, and try the language in the dialogues aloud, ideally in role play; the companion website's scripted role-play cards and videos are designed for this. Note one or two phrases to try in the next lesson and review how they went. Pair the book with the behaviour policy of the school where the placement takes place, and with a technique-based or research-based book from the course list.