Want To Build Better Relationships With Your Students? Start Investing In The Behaviour Bank
Rob Plevin says it’s vital that our personal relationship accounts with children don’t get overdrawn…
- by Rob Plevin
We know how important good teacher-student relationships are, but the big question is this – how do we go about building them?
I came to realise that the simplest way is to think of things in terms of a bank account. We make deposits and we get money back as interest. So, the more we put in, the more we get in return.
With a relationship account, however, we’re making deposits with something much more valuable – we give ourselves. We do this in two ways, by showing the other person we care, and by communicating frequently with her.
Breaking the vicious circle
You can’t have a relationship without communication, so it’s not surprising we have poor relationships with our most challenging students. It’s a vicious circle – you can’t get to know them until you have something to talk about and you have little to talk about until you get to know them. So our first step is to find out their interests and passions.
One useful method is the the ‘record card’ questionnaire (download a copy from here). It’s a bit like the old sales trick of recording a client’s personal information so you can be more familiar with them in the future. Titbits of information released over time gradually build up and form a library of useful information.
Get students to fill out a record card on a subject like TV and film, with questions like ‘What’s the best film you’ve ever seen at the cinema?’, ‘List three films you’ve recently seen that you enjoyed’ and ‘What are your three favourite TV programmes?’. You can use the information to increase the effectiveness of rewards by tailoring them to students’ interests, provide appealing reading material at breaktimes and plan interesting lessons. Once you’ve found out about your students’ interests, you still need a way of starting up a conversation. Here are three:
1. Ask them for advice This lets them express their opinions and shows that we value what they have to say.
2. Ask a favour It may seem counter-intuitive, but if you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Helping people gives us a sense of being needed or wanted, which feels good – even if it’s something as small as helping you carry equipment or assisting with a wall display.
3. Give them a compliment You just need to learn how to make it sound sincere. Do this by using the person’s name, telling her why you’re giving the compliment and finish with an open-ended question. For example: “Hey, Jonny – I hear you played very well in the match on Saturday. Mr Smith said you were very good in defence. What were the other team like?”
Giant peaches and stationary
The second of our key relationship-building factors is showing students that you value and care about them, so take time to learn their names, and do it as soon as possible. A good trick is to link a crazy, memorable image with their given name in your head. For example, if you have a James, just make the Roald Dahl link and spend a few seconds looking at James’ face, imagining his head as a giant peach. Use cards, notes and letters. These can be a powerful way of connecting with some students, particularly those who are reluctant to talk face to face. Send birthday or get well soon cards, and use marking as an opportunity to connect via sticky notes. These private little dialogues all work towards conveying the message that you care about and value pupils. Organising trips brings a whole new dimension to your relationship with children, as does attending school events like watching the sports team or any concerts or productions they put on. Offer plenty of support, make time to listen to them, perform acts of random kindness and be sure to display everyone’s work. And for particularly difficult students? Take the relationship challenge. Commit to improving your relationship by spending a minimum of 30 seconds a day for 20 days engaged in relationship-building conversation with them, then see how your bond with them changes.
This article is an edited extract from Take Control of the Noisy Class by Rob Plevin, available from Crown House Publishing; download instructions for the relationship challenge can be found at noisyclass.com/bookresources
Rob Plevin is a behaviour management trainer; for more information, visit needsfocusedteaching.com or follow @robplevin
