Resource 1: Reflecting on your behaviour

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Using the questions below, think about your own behaviour as a teacher. Be honest in your answers. Are there examples from your classroom activities that support your ideas?

• Are you a positive or a negative teacher in the way you treat your pupils? How could you be more positive?
• Do you try to encourage them or discourage them? How? How can you encourage them more?
• Do you make them happy when they are learning? How?
• Do you ever make them sad, angry or scared? How?
• What aspect of your teaching behaviour do you want to change? How can you do this?
• What aspect of your pupils’ social behaviour would you like to change? How could you help them achieve this?

Sometimes it is not easy to answer these questions for ourselves and so it can be very useful to have a peer (fellow teacher) to come and observe you teach. The peer can use the questions above to base his or her observations on and to give you feedback. The idea is to be supportive, not to try and knock you down! Your colleague can feed back your strengths as a teacher and your weaknesses, and together you can discuss what sorts of things you need to do to improve your teaching. Ideally, you would then go and do the same thing for your colleague.

This way of working can be difficult in the beginning – as we often don’t like others to be in our classroom watching us teach – but it is a very powerful way to help each other and share ideas. Start by working with a teacher you trust and get on well with.

Tell your head teacher what you are doing, and keep him or her informed of your progress. Your head teacher will probably be very interested and will support you. Share your idea with other teachers in a staff meeting.