When it comes to positive behaviour management, many teachers find low-level disruption the hardest nut to crack.

Usually, it represents the last obstacle on the journey to excellent behaviour.

This is because low-level disruption tends to occur in the space between perfect behaviour for learning and poor behaviour for learning.

By this we mean that many learners can tend towards low-level disruption, either intentionally or not, without their behaviour deteriorating to the point of it being a serious problem.

For example, a learner may be largely on task during a lesson, only to spend the last ten minutes trying to chat surreptitiously to the person in front of them while their work is left on the backburner.

Or another learner may wait until they feel the teacher cannot see them and then decide to slide their work to one side while they doodle in their planner.

Such examples are common enough.

They are neither particularly surprising nor particularly bad.

But the fact remains that they involve learners losing focus and prioritising things other than their learning.

This goes against our attempts to cultivate a classroom culture we want and reduces the amount of progress learners are likely to make.

When it comes to both these things – creating a culture and maximising progress – accumulation is key.

We need to accumulate more and more marginal gains every lesson.

Through this, we come to achieve our wider goal and draw learners’ focus more and more in the direction we want.

Eliminating low-level disruption matters, then.

Both for us and for our learners. In terms of the culture we want to create and the learning we want to happen.

So, let’s have a think about what low-level disruption is, at heart, and what that means for how we deal with it.

What is Low-Level Disruption?

Low-level disruption is anything learners do that distracts them and/or others from their learning and which is not significant enough to be described as a major behavioural issue.

It includes things like:

• Social chat
• Talking unnecessarily
• Calling out
• Not starting work or following instructions
• Being slow to start work or follow instructions
• Showing a lack of respect to peers
• Showing a lack of respect to the teacher and/or other members of staff
• Using or trying to use a mobile phone without permission
• Leaving a seat without permission
• Passing notes
• Trying to communicate across the room
• Talking while the teacher is speaking
• Undermining activities (particularly common during group work)

The first thing to say about this list is that maybe we don’t want to view it as low-level disruption.

Perhaps thinking of it in this way is part of the problem.

Instead of calling the collected behaviours outlined above ‘low-level’ we should simply jettison the modifier and call them disruptions.

This challenges the view that there are different degrees of disruption in the classroom.

It does so, not by suggesting a false equivalence between a learner shouting and swearing and a learner whispering to the person next to them.

Instead, it suggests that anything other than learning-focussed behaviour is not what we want.

That it is disruptive to the lesson and to the wider aims of the teacher, the class, and the school.

Thus, while there are different degrees of disruption, with these being more or less serious, all forms of disruption share the same core aspect: they detract from learning.

Thinking in this way allows us to reframe low-level disruption as unacceptable.

It is unacceptable because it stands in the way of learning.

To allow it is to accept that learning is not the primary focus for all learners at all points in the lesson.

Having this rationale to hand gives us a powerful tool to use when looking to eliminate low-level disruption.

Learners may question whether such disruption really matters and, as a result, may challenge your attempts to change their behaviour.

Formulating your response on this basis gives you a strong position from which to work.

The aim is to be able to demonstrate to learners the rationality of your case, using a logic that is difficult to argue against.

Here’s an example:

• Learner: It’s just a bit of banter, sir. What’s the problem with that?
• Teacher: Our aim when we’re here is to learn. That’s what we’re working towards. Anything that takes away from that affects our chances of being successful. We need to use our time as effectively as possible so we can make as much progress as possible. Banter adds nothing and inhibits us from achieving our aims.

While the learner may argue back against such a statement, they will struggle to do so coherently.

The only way they might chip away at the teacher’s argument is by attempting to undermine the foundations on which it stands.

For example, they may challenge the view that learning is everyone’s top priority.

However, taking this approach leaves the learner open to the counterargument that they are happy to disrupt learning rather than focus on it.

If true, the learner has given their attitude away and undermined their initial justification that there is no problem with a bit of banter.

If false, the learner will find themselves struggling to maintain their position because they do not really believe in it.

The purpose of the above is twofold.

First, reconceptualising all off-task behaviour as detrimental to learning provides a clear means through which to challenge it when it happens in the classroom.

Second, using reason to justify the fact that learners need to alter their behaviour provides an excellent model for imitation at the same time as it makes continued counterargument difficult.

In conclusion, we can say that low-level disruption refers to a range of relatively minor behavioural challenges.

Getting rid of the modifier ‘low-level’ can help us to see these challenges simply as disruptions.

This makes it easier to set our expectations high and to signal to learners why such disruptions are unwelcome.

And this gives us a great starting point for eliminating low-level disruption in our classrooms.