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Getting culture right Part 2: Understanding group psychology

Jan 12, 2018 | Category: behaviour

This is the second post on getting cultures right in schools. You can find Part 1, on social norms and using normative messages, here.We are essentially social animals and have evolved to thrive in...

#Judith RIch Harris #Elliot Aronson #group socialisation theory #stereotype threat #Claude Steele #Dominic Abrams #Henri Tajfel #inter-group discrimination #Muzafer Sherif #superordinate goals

Getting culture right Part 1: Normative messages

Aug 02, 2017 | Category: behaviour

If you want to change anything within a school, culture is crucial. As Tom Bennett argues in Creating a Culture: How school leaders can optimise behaviour, culture is "the way we do things round here"...

#Tom Bennett #culture #herd immunity #normative messages #social norms #Solomon Asch

Should teachers do what children want?

May 19, 2017 | Category: behaviour

Every weekday morning, my daughters both moan about having to get up for school. They moan about their teachers and they moan about homework. Given free rein, they would spend all day every day watchi...

#fun #groupwork #engagement

Why parents should support schools

May 13, 2017 | Category: behaviour

Like all parents, I want the best for my children. When they're unhappy, I'm unhappy. When they suffer injustice, I'm incensed. When their school makes a decision I disagree with, my first reaction is...

#parents

Easy is easy, hard is hard

May 08, 2017 | Category: behaviour

Recently, I had the ill luck to be present for a friend's five-year-old daughter's birthday party. To add to the naturally generated mayhem of putting 30 small children in a space with fizzy drinks an...

The consequences of freedom Part 2

Apr 12, 2017 | Category: behaviour

Last month I wrote about RD Laing and how his conception of freedom has had a lasting and negative impact on education as well as wider society. In this post I want to consider the role of Isiah Berli...

#freedom #Isiah Berlin #neo-liberalism

The consequences of freedom

Mar 23, 2017 | Category: behaviour

Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, ju...

#mental health #game theory #RD Laing #Thomas Hobbes

Bottom sets and the scourge of low-level disruption

Nov 14, 2016 | Category: behaviour

In many English schools, low-level disruption is the norm. Children talking when expected to be silent, fiddling with equipment and each other, calling out, and generally not being 'on task' are all r...

#Ofsted #EEF #halo effect #expectations #ability setting #low-level disruption

Is our behaviour a choice?

Sep 29, 2016 | Category: behaviour

Arguments about free will date back to ancient Greece, but the scientific consensus now tends towards the belief that free will is an illusion. It's become an article of faith in the life sciences tha...

#behaviour #Reading #free will

Should everyone follow the rules?

Sep 08, 2016 | Category: behaviour

I've never liked being told what to do. I'm not a great team player and I struggle with authority. I've always chafed at constraints and, as I get older, I've become increasingly aware that what I use...

#behaviour #no excuses #punishment #rules