If lessons are well planned, varied and purposeful, and the teacher is clear and consistent, most problems never start. 25 strategies, centred on transitions, signals and catching children being good.
Key strategies (selected from 25)
- Transitions: starts, ends and changes of activity are where trouble happens. Plan them as stages.
- Attention signal: one consistent gesture, tambourine or bell.
- The waiting game: open body language, neutral face, wait.
- CBG: Catch them Being Good. Praise on-task behaviour rather than constantly reprimanding.
- Stir vs settle activities (Halliwell 1992). Sequence lessons to manage energy.
- Vary seating and pairing criteria; demonstrate instead of explaining; a class behaviour contract, kept to.
- “Arc of scan”: keep the whole room in view.
Limits
“There are no easy answers, many complex variables.” General rules, no age or class-size boundaries.
Apply in my context (Claude)
- Stir/settle is the most transferable idea for 45-minute primary lessons in Tashkent. Audit Kid’s Box lessons for back-to-back “stirrers” (songs, TPR then pairwork) and insert a settler (colouring dictation, quiet picture-word matching).
- Conduct scoring link: log transition behaviour separately in Axloqiy baholash data. It will probably show that most incidents cluster there.