Managing behaviour after the holidays

January is a time to start fresh in schools. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to stall as you try to nudge things up a gear in the New Year. After all, teachers generally promote fun and good times ahead of work and efficiency in those final few weeks before Christmas. This is why most need to work hard to manage the behavior of their pupils when they return in 2018. If you’re faced with this task, here are three tips that should help.

Remove Christmas

There’s literally no room for any festive fun in January. Instead, it’s time to knuckle down and get serious again. But how can you get this message across? Well, you simply have to remove Christmas. This means no festive displays, no holiday-themed work should be handed back to pupils, and the rules should be just as firm as they were in September. These steps should help the children understand that it’s once again time to be on their best behaviour.

Outline direction

As the teacher, you should steer the ship into a clear direction. For instance, if you’re heading towards exams or assessments – most of which take place in May – then this should be outlined immediately in January. This will remind your class just why it’s so important to be well-behaved in the months ahead, especially when the end of last term was so playful.

Keep the pace moving

Children often play up because they see their teachers’ shortcomings. In most cases, this is most likely to be their lack of organisation after Christmas. If you’re on a holiday hangover and haven’t sorted things like enough ballpoint pens or exercise books for the pupils to use, they may sense that you’re not serious about changing the pace. As a result, they may follow your lead and exhibit poor behaviour.

Good luck!

The best way to manage behaviour after the holidays is to be organised, follow a clear plan of action into the future and move on from how things were in December. These three things – along with ensuring you have the right school supplies – should mean your class behave just how you want them to throughout January and beyond.