CB Education Blog

Most teachers make many mistakes in the early years of their careers. The majority of these mistakes, in hindsight, are avoidable. This series of articles is written with the experience of many years’ teaching in mind. I hope it can help you to avoid some of the common mistakes made by new teachers, including those that I made myself.

Teaching is an emotionally satisfying career, but an extremely stressful one. By following the advice given here, you can reduce the stress and hopefully manage it more easily. Some of the advice applies mainly to the first few weeks in a job, where the children are looking for weaknesses and before you have established yourself. The advice on Dress Code is one example, where once established you will be able to dress in a less formal manner.

Hopefully, this book can help more teachers to succeed that much sooner and help to reduce the loss of so many valuable newly trained teachers to the profession.

You will need your own car. Public transport is not a good way of travelling to school. Unless you live very close to the school there will be no direct bus route. If there are easy transport links to the school you can expect to be travelling with the children you teach. This often creates problems. Using public transport means that your day will be considerably longer too. Having to use a rail service with hourly trains may mean having to arrive in school before 8am and not leaving until 4.30pm.

In the short term, you may be able to arrange a lift with a colleague who happens to live nearby, but this becomes progressively less convenient when you have to arrange your domestic routine around the school and domestic commitments of your driver colleague.

You will almost certainly work for a month before you are paid. Most schools have a set date for paying their teachers. If you are lucky it will be the 20th of the month, but it is far more likely to be the 28th. You will have lost eligibility for Unemployment Benefit and Social Security payments on the day you started work, but you will have to live for a month on nothing but fresh air and loans from parents, friends, the bank or those wonderful credit cards. Arrange your applications for credit cards, overdrafts and loans in advance - you are going to need them.

Be sure to inform your employers of any previous employment. Some schools will give you incremental credit for your employment prior to teaching, even if it was many years ago. This is particularly important for mature entrants to the profession.

Join a union, or professional association as they are sometimes called in teaching. This gives you cover in the event of malicious allegations or assault by pupils. It is probably a good idea to join all the unions as a student, when they are free, then to choose one for paid membership depending on the relative strengths of the unions in your school.

Most teachers make many mistakes in the early years of their careers. The majority of these mistakes, in hindsight, are avoidable. This series of articles is written with the experience of many years’ teaching in mind. I hope it can help you to avoid some of the common mistakes made by new teachers, including those that I made myself.

Teaching is an emotionally satisfying career, but an extremely stressful one. By following the advice given here, you can reduce the stress and hopefully manage it more easily. Some of the advice applies mainly to the first few weeks in a job, where the children are looking for weaknesses and before you have established yourself. The advice on Dress Code is one example, where once established you will be able to dress in a less formal manner.

Hopefully, this book can help more teachers to succeed that much sooner and help to reduce the loss of so many valuable newly trained teachers to the profession.

You will need your own car. Public transport is not a good way of travelling to school. Unless you live very close to the school there will be no direct bus route. If there are easy transport links to the school you can expect to be travelling with the children you teach. This often creates problems. Using public transport means that your day will be considerably longer too. Having to use a rail service with hourly trains may mean having to arrive in school before 8am and not leaving until 4.30pm.

In the short term, you may be able to arrange a lift with a colleague who happens to live nearby, but this becomes progressively less convenient when you have to arrange your domestic routine around the school and domestic commitments of your driver colleague.

You will almost certainly work for a month before you are paid. Most schools have a set date for paying their teachers. If you are lucky it will be the 20th of the month, but it is far more likely to be the 28th. You will have lost eligibility for Unemployment Benefit and Social Security payments on the day you started work, but you will have to live for a month on nothing but fresh air and loans from parents, friends, the bank or those wonderful credit cards. Arrange your applications for credit cards, overdrafts and loans in advance - you are going to need them.

Be sure to inform your employers of any previous employment. Some schools will give you incremental credit for your employment prior to teaching, even if it was many years ago. This is particularly important for mature entrants to the profession.

Join a union, or professional association as they are sometimes called in teaching. This gives you cover in the event of malicious allegations or assault by pupils. It is probably a good idea to join all the unions as a student, when they are free, then to choose one for paid membership depending on the relative strengths of the unions in your school.

Body language is your chief weapon in your campaign for a calm and disciplined learning environment. With the correct posture or hand movement it is possible to control even the most rowdy of classes. Most of the ideas here are extremely simple but they do work. Practice them on colleagues and children and they will make your teaching much more effective.

Smile. It is an indication of confidence. Some classes are unused to anyone smiling at them because their behaviour is so dreadful that teachers have to work hard to keep them under control. These children delight in winding up their teachers. If you smile then YOU are winning and the class acknowledge this by working better for you.

If you stand up you are immediately above even the tallest of seated adolescents, this means that they are looking up to you, at least literally. Some lessons lend themselves to standing better than others, but basically, you should be standing whenever you are talking to children.

Make eye-contact with every child when you look around the class. Be careful that you are not moving your point of focus too quickly and that each child knows that you have seen them. Eye contact is particularly important when you are speaking to a particular child. Do not allow the individual to look away. The child looking away has switched you off and you might as well save your breath.

Always stand in the open, rather than behind a desk. This “exposing yourself” is a sign of confidence in yourself.

Move slowly about the room. Rapid walking around the room unsettles the class and makes them noisy.

If you are using your hands to describe left and right, remember your left is the children’s right.

Consequently you should gesture with the right hand when saying “Left”, and vice versa. One way to think about it is to imagine a large glass screen between you and the class with the image you are describing on it. It is as though you are behind the screen.

If you watch someone who does not use this technique it is very distracting and prevents the class concentrating on the concepts that the teacher is trying to convey.

Body language is your chief weapon in your campaign for a calm and disciplined learning environment. With the correct posture or hand movement it is possible to control even the most rowdy of classes. Most of the ideas here are extremely simple but they do work. Practice them on colleagues and children and they will make your teaching much more effective.

Smile. It is an indication of confidence. Some classes are unused to anyone smiling at them because their behaviour is so dreadful that teachers have to work hard to keep them under control. These children delight in winding up their teachers. If you smile then YOU are winning and the class acknowledge this by working better for you.

If you stand up you are immediately above even the tallest of seated adolescents, this means that they are looking up to you, at least literally. Some lessons lend themselves to standing better than others, but basically, you should be standing whenever you are talking to children.

Make eye-contact with every child when you look around the class. Be careful that you are not moving your point of focus too quickly and that each child knows that you have seen them. Eye contact is particularly important when you are speaking to a particular child. Do not allow the individual to look away. The child looking away has switched you off and you might as well save your breath.

Always stand in the open, rather than behind a desk. This “exposing yourself” is a sign of confidence in yourself.

Move slowly about the room. Rapid walking around the room unsettles the class and makes them noisy.

If you are using your hands to describe left and right, remember your left is the children’s right.

Consequently you should gesture with the right hand when saying “Left”, and vice versa. One way to think about it is to imagine a large glass screen between you and the class with the image you are describing on it. It is as though you are behind the screen.

If you watch someone who does not use this technique it is very distracting and prevents the class concentrating on the concepts that the teacher is trying to convey.

It is much harder to control the tone of your voice when you are talking loudly or shouting. The logic therefore is to avoid shouting at all costs.

Most women know the limits of their voices and consequently rarely lose control. Men can shout louder without losing control of their voices and sometimes use a loud voice in an attempt to frighten children. This is rarely effective unless used very occasionally, and men would be well advised to use this tactic less often.

Many children are shouted at very frequently both by their teachers, and by their parents and the effects wear off. The child is aware that if you are shouting then you have reached the limit of your sanctions. They are very aware that teachers must not touch children and some will attempt to provoke you beyond your limits. The best way to avoid this type of provocation is to avoid shouting at individual children altogether and to severely limit your shouting at the class.

It is possible to talk quietly to a class and to have them do everything you ask; in fact it is easier to teach that way. If you are loud then the children can have their own conversation and still hear you. They are not listening, but most children cannot differentiate between hearing and listening in any case. If you keep your voice down it will have a calming effect on you and on the class.

Similarly, the banging of rulers, books or board rubbers on the desk should be avoided. Banging objects always disrupts the calm working atmosphere that you are trying to engender. Noisy class control methods are unnecessary as long as you follow the advice in the next section on Body Language.

You should make an effort to speak more slowly than usual, as you would when acting on stage. This will help the children catch what you are saying more easily and add to the calm atmosphere. Large classrooms usually have echoes and the effects of these are reduced if you speak more slowly.

Practice projecting your voice with a class in front of you, think about how the shape of your mouth changes when projecting.

Vary the level of your voice as you speak, drop it suddenly to catch the children’s attention.

Make sure that you can understand the children’s accents and dialect and that they can understand yours. There are more of them so they are “in the right” and it will be down to you to work towards better communication. Children will use a lack of it as another reason for not doing as well as expected. It also helps you to understand what they are saying behind your back!

It is essential that you avoid the use of any word or phrase that could be construed as offensive; just because a phrase is in wide use does not automatically make it acceptable for a teacher to use. Many phrases from television series fall into this category.

The most important single idea in teaching is to insist on absolute silence before you speak, if you compromise on this one, you are lost.

It is much harder to control the tone of your voice when you are talking loudly or shouting. The logic therefore is to avoid shouting at all costs.

Most women know the limits of their voices and consequently rarely lose control. Men can shout louder without losing control of their voices and sometimes use a loud voice in an attempt to frighten children. This is rarely effective unless used very occasionally, and men would be well advised to use this tactic less often.

Many children are shouted at very frequently both by their teachers, and by their parents and the effects wear off. The child is aware that if you are shouting then you have reached the limit of your sanctions. They are very aware that teachers must not touch children and some will attempt to provoke you beyond your limits. The best way to avoid this type of provocation is to avoid shouting at individual children altogether and to severely limit your shouting at the class.

It is possible to talk quietly to a class and to have them do everything you ask; in fact it is easier to teach that way. If you are loud then the children can have their own conversation and still hear you. They are not listening, but most children cannot differentiate between hearing and listening in any case. If you keep your voice down it will have a calming effect on you and on the class.

Similarly, the banging of rulers, books or board rubbers on the desk should be avoided. Banging objects always disrupts the calm working atmosphere that you are trying to engender. Noisy class control methods are unnecessary as long as you follow the advice in the next section on Body Language.

You should make an effort to speak more slowly than usual, as you would when acting on stage. This will help the children catch what you are saying more easily and add to the calm atmosphere. Large classrooms usually have echoes and the effects of these are reduced if you speak more slowly.

Practice projecting your voice with a class in front of you, think about how the shape of your mouth changes when projecting.

Vary the level of your voice as you speak, drop it suddenly to catch the children’s attention.

Make sure that you can understand the children’s accents and dialect and that they can understand yours. There are more of them so they are “in the right” and it will be down to you to work towards better communication. Children will use a lack of it as another reason for not doing as well as expected. It also helps you to understand what they are saying behind your back!

It is essential that you avoid the use of any word or phrase that could be construed as offensive; just because a phrase is in wide use does not automatically make it acceptable for a teacher to use. Many phrases from television series fall into this category.

The most important single idea in teaching is to insist on absolute silence before you speak, if you compromise on this one, you are lost.

It is most important to keep your thumbs and hands visible when talking to a class. Practice holding your hands out with the thumbs pointing upwards until you can do it naturally. This is a very powerful dominance gesture, although it is one which does not come naturally to everyone.

If you find this is too difficult to do naturally, then try holding your hands at your sides, slightly curled, with the thumbs visible. This has less effect but is still powerful.

Hand movements should be calm and slow.

When you are having to wait too long for silence try closing your eyes, while using the hand and thumb technique above, and counting visibly. The more observant children will “Shhh” the class for you.

It is a good idea to have a “hot spot” where you always stand to tell the children off. After a very short time the children will become quiet as soon as you go there. The “hot spot” should be reserved for this purpose.

These techniques are taken as evidence of self-confidence by the children.

It is essential that you expect good behaviour at all times. Your expectations comes across in your subconscious body language. If you do not expect good behaviour then you will never meet it.

You can use body language and careful speech patterns to defuse many situations. It is always better to avoid confrontation wherever possible without losing face. It is important that you allow children to avoid losing face too. A child will often back down if they can do so without friends seeing it. This is why taking a child outside the room for a few words usually works much better than shouting at him or her in the class.

If you have the time, then wait until the class has gone, sit down and talk to the errant child, perhaps with a desk between you while s/he is standing. This removes the need that the child has to look “cool” by slouching, because you are looking more “cool” by sitting down. The child sees you as confident and in control. It means that you do not have to tell him or her off for bad posture and keeps the two of you a safe distance apart, reducing the likelihood of a flare-up. The worst that can happen is that the child storms off, and that can be dealt with on a later occasion, perhaps by a senior colleague

A few experienced teachers may be scathing about the use of body language in class control, even though they subconsciously use it themselves. You should be cautious in discussing body language with colleagues because there will be some malicious teachers who will tell the children about the “hot spot” or “raised thumbs” techniques. Once the children are aware of what you are doing the techniques become much less effective.