by Thomas Mayne

Created on: August 18, 2009

As a teacher maintaining good discipline within your class is a vital to ensuring you provide the highest quality of education possible to the pupils in your care. A class without discipline is a ship without a direction, and the sign of a strong teacher is one who can roll with the punches delivered by a difficult class and find some method to bend them to their will. There are many different ways to instil discipline within a class, from strict disciplinarianism to a more casual approach and each individual teacher should find the style which works for them and clicks with their teaching orientation. There are however a number of common principles which must be adhered to no matter which route you choose to maintain discipline and are central to keeping a class under control and through the course of this article these will be explored.

Firstly there must be clearly differentiated roles between the class and the teacher. This doesn't mean that you have to shout at them every five minutes and constantly show them whose boss, but it does mean that they should never doubt that YOU as the teacher are the person in driving seat. The phrase familiarity breeds contempt comes into play here. Even if you are the sort of teacher who likes to become friendly with the students and gain respect through being amiable with them they should never forget that you are not one of their peers and you will act should they get out of line. This is achieved through creating an atmosphere of authority. Children should maintain the correct forms of address at all times, referring to the teacher as Sir or Miss respectively, or using the honorific mr or mrs when addressing by name. There should be zero tolerance for cheeky or disrespectful comments towards the figure of authority, camaraderie aside, and these should be dealt with harshly.

This brings us onto our second principle, that of boundaries. Children should be set strict boundaries as to what is and is not acceptable behaviour. A teacher should never threaten what they cannot deliver upon and should never hold back in applying punishment when an warning goes unheeded. Children should never get the impression that as a teacher you are bluffing or do not have a strong grasp of the disciplinary process. This ties in with an instilling of respect. The best teachers will garner a culture of mutual respect in their class, whether that is through being feared as a strict disciplinarian who brooks no wrongdoing or as a friendly and

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