Reflection

Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive environments

Focus 4.3.1 Manage challenging behaviour
- Demonstrate knowledge of practical approaches to manage challenging behaviour.
Throughout my practicum, I found this was one of my weakest areas, in which I strived to
achieve. I easily built a positive rapport with the students, and while teaching, with
experience, I could teach the content, and draw out the positive behaviours occurring
around the room, but I still felt I was not firm enough.
I knew I needed to be firmer, and I approached my mentor teacher saying I feel
worried about being stern with the kids. Her advice was to think, would I allow my children
to speak or act in this manner, I said No, she said she would support me 100% in the
decisions I made.
From this, I imagined I was correcting my own childrens behaviour, and this assisted.
I was still caring and nurturing, but I started to make great use of my stern teacher voice. I
would explain expectations, and questioned the students how would they feel?
I made use of the classroom, happy/sad face management strategy, and explained to
students with the right choices, they can be on happy again. The students responded well,
and learned the right choices for the classroom.
On the last day, I spoke privately to one of the disruptive students, and I told him
how proud I was of his progress over the last few weeks, and he is a great kid. He was one
of four children to receive a special award at assembly for demonstrating his 5Ls
throughout the assembly. He looked at me and smiled.
I feel I still could improve further, and my next practicum, I will work on being
explicit with my expectations, additionally provide a warm, and approachable environment
with an authoritative leadership style (Whitton, Barker, Nosworthy, Humphries, & Sinclair, 2016).

References
Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Humphries, J., & Sinclair, C. (2016). Promoting
positive behaviour (pp. 245-254). Melbourne, Australia: CENGAGE Learning.