Sanctions are a key part of positive behaviour management.

They are a backstop, helping learners understand that if they break the rules, there will be consequences.

Here, we can look at some examples of good and bad practice around sanctions.

Behaviour Management and Sanctions: Good Practice – Clarity of Communication

If learners know what consequences you have set out for rule-breaking behaviour and know what rules are important in your classroom, then they have all the information necessary to behave appropriately.

This is enhanced if you go out of your way to continually communicate your high expectations to them.

Accurate communication of information about sanctions is a key part of good practice.

If learners are not in possession of this information, they cannot reasonably be expected to behave as you would like them to.

And what is more, they will have a strong case from which to criticise you if and when you do apply sanctions (saying something along the lines of: ‘Well, how was I supposed to know this would happen?’).

Behaviour Management and Sanctions: Good Practice – Non-Verbal Sanctions

Non-verbal sanctions are an effective, non-disruptive way through which to redirect learner behaviour, particularly when it is a minor infringement of classroom norms.

In these cases, using body language and facial expressions serves to draw learners’ attention without making a big deal of the matter in question.

In general, such gestures are hard to ignore.

Many learners also appreciate the understated nature of this kind of sanction, rectifying their behaviour in accordance with your intimations and without need for further escalation.

It is worth developing a repertoire of non-verbal sanctions, so you have plenty to call on when you are in the classroom.

Examples include:

• Looks
• Gestures
• Your positioning in the room
• Tapping the table (as a way of indicating that learners should refocus on their work)
• Pointing (though use this carefully as it can sometimes come across as aggressive or rude, undermining its use as a sanction)

Behaviour Management and Sanctions: Good Practice – Getting Upstream

Regularly using minor sanctions such as body language, facial expressions, verbal reminders, gentle admonishments (for example: ‘Remind me what great learning looks like in our classroom?’) and redirections (for example: ‘Stop doing that, thanks; back on task.’) is an excellent way to avoid behaviour getting to a point where more serious sanctions need to be applied.

This is all about getting upstream of negative behaviour.

It’s easier to redirect a stream near the source than it is to redirect it when the current is strong, and the volume of water is high.

If you can stop things happening before they happen, everything is simpler.

The principle here is one of proactivity.

By focussing on the small things, and therefore the small sanctions, we stop the big things happening.

To put it another way, by keeping the testing of rules and boundaries at the level of minor infringements, we make it less likely that major challenges will ever come about.

Behaviour Management and Sanctions: Bad Practice – Harsh Sanctions in Public

Applying harsh sanctions to a learner in front of the whole class is a risky business, best avoided.

Doing this places the learner in a difficult position.

They will naturally want to save face in front of their peers and so, regardless of whether the sanction is merited, may choose to escalate the situation by reacting in a negative manner.

While such situations sometimes feel unavoidable, many alternatives are available.

First, we can ask the learner to stop their behaviour and then go and apply the sanction later by talking to them one-to-one.

Second, we can ask the learner to step outside the room and to take a moment to think about their behaviour.

Then, we can go and talk to them in a less charged setting, applying the sanction there.

Finally, we can ask the learner to stop their behaviour and then wait until the end of the lesson before speaking further with them.

At this point, we ask them to stay behind and talk to them quietly and calmly, again applying the sanction in a less charged environment.

Behaviour Management and Sanctions: Bad Practice – Starting Big

Starting big gives you little room to manoeuvre.

For example, a learner might behave in a manner you regard as poor at which point you say something like: ‘Do that again and I’ll put you in detention for a week.’

Such a response is usually caused by an emotional reaction rather than rational thought.

In the intensity of the classroom, this can often happen.

Catching and stopping yourself is important, though.

In the above example, where else is there to go?

And how likely is it that you will see the sanction through?

A good tip is to habituate yourself into a rule of three of approach.

• First, always ask the learner to stop the undesired behaviour while indicating that it is detrimental to the learning happening in the class.
• Second, if the learner does not stop, ask them again and this time indicate that a sanction will be forthcoming if they do not make a change.
• Third, if the learner continues the behaviour, remind them that they have had two chances and then explain the sanction and apply it.

Note how I don’t specify a sanction in this model.

That’s because I don’t need to.

You will have the time and space in which to decide on what is appropriate during stages one and two.

Then, if it gets to stage three, you can apply a reasonable, proportionate sanction you know you will be able to follow through on.

Behaviour Management and Sanctions: Bad Practice – Holding on to Sanctions

The point of a sanction is that it is a consequence for rule-breaking behaviour.

Holding on to it means punishing a learner twice for the same act.

First with the sanction.

Second with the mindset you have about that learner in which you continue to think of them in the context of the sanction.

Thinking in this way leads to labelling.

That is, the process whereby we stop seeing learners as individuals and instead attach labels to them that we then use to characterise their entire behaviour.

For example, you might hear a teacher in the staffroom describe a learner as a ‘regular little troublemaker.’

This is bad.

While the learner may have been in trouble on several occasions, what chance have they got of changing their behaviour if teachers are viewing them through this prism?

When a sanction has been applied, it is time to move on.

If the learner in question breaks the rules again – particularly if they break the same rule – then we should return to the original sanction and ask whether it had the effect we anticipated.

But, outside of that, we can’t expect learners to improve their behaviour unless we give them the space in which to do so.

Always remember that the sanction applies to the behaviour, and that the learner always has the capacity to change their behaviour – with our help.