Supporting staff with challenging students.

As a school leader, supporting and guiding teachers and students in developing purposeful working relationships can be a minefield.  We've all had those students throughout our career who have challenged our thinking,  tested our patience and made us doubt our ability to teach them.  When a

staff member has a student with special needs, learning needs or behaviour issues, it's my job as a leader to ensure that they are supported in their endeavours to develop the best programme necessary to meet the needs of that student.  This is not always easy and it is becoming a more and more common occurrence in main stream schooling.

    There is very much a tension between doing what is right for the individual student and doing what is right for the teacher and class when challenges arise.  Students come to school with the right to be safe and happy in an environment that offers learning that is engaging, challenging and fun.  Any teacher will tell you that it only takes one student to tip that environment on its head.

   So how do school leaders support, monitor and minimise disruption through student behaviours? It's no easy task.  Teachers work extremely hard to design and implement engaging programmes and set high expectations of their students to make sound progress and achieve expected outcomes with the hope that they can go beyond even those.  They have a preconceived picture of what they want to happen and how it's going to work, that's what planning and preparation is about.  One hopes they cover all the bases and have anticipated any possible hiccups that may happen along the way, readying a plan B just in case.   When teaching in a class with more than one challenging student, sometimes having a plan C, D and E often still doesn't cover a lesson that goes to custard when unpredictable behaviours occur.

In leadership there are a number of ways to support teachers with challenging students.  First and foremost, establishing a relationship with the students whanau is a priority.  Opening lines of communication helps in establishing expectations, creating behaviour plans and sharing 'same' messages both at home and at school.  Through these relationships, schools can advise whanau of the extra support available in the community to assist with their child's development, such as community programmes in the arts, sports and other possible interests of the child.  There are also support services to support families financially and avenues for further guidance in health and cognitive development.

In school, supporting classes with challenging students is imperative to positive outcomes.  The tension between taking students out and leaving them in class to work is an ongoing debate.  One school survey of 118 students identified that the number one issue identified by students  was that they couldn't stay fully focused on their work because of classroom disruption.  The message for leadership through this survey was that a closer look at classroom and behaviour management was required.  In focusing on these things it was realised that programmes for challenging students needed to be implemented to offer those students an alternative learning avenue to the classroom, and at the same time gave teachers and students respite from disruption for parts of the day.  At the forefront to programme development is purposeful outcomes wholly established to progress student learning and achievement. 

     We are hoping that the development of 'makerspace', wellbeing programmes and tuakana teina programmes will go a long way to more settled classrooms, a feeling of value and engagement for students involved and less grey hair for  teachers.  Leadership will monitor progress through qualitative data from students, teachers and whanau.  We will measure against engagement, key competencies and identified outcomes. 

What if all teachers had high expectations for every student?

A day spent at the LITHE (Leaders Influencing Teacher's High Expectations) course at Auckland Uni.  Lots of food for thought.  Once again, conflicting thoughts, challenging thinking...watch this space!