First published in Teach Primary Magazine in July 2008.
If punitive sanctions actually changed behaviour the prisons would be empty, the police eating donuts and I would be out of a job. When sanctions are used to reinforce the lines of appropriate behaviour, to repair trust and make agreements for future conduct then they can have a sustained impact. When they are personal retribution, revenge or born from an emotional response they are remembered for the wrong reasons.
'Punishment hardens and numbs, it produces obstinacy, it sharpens the sense of alienation and strengthens the power of resistance'
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Being spoken to about your behaviour in front of your peers is at best tense and at worst, terrifying. Just check your own reaction the next time you are beeped at for some minor driving error, or admonished at the dinner table by your partner in front of friends. Being spoken to about your personal conduct in public is embarrassing; having it shouted across a room full of your peers can be humiliating and more often than not elicit a defensive reaction. So it goes with children.
Private and discrete application of sanctions reduces the chance of challenge and confrontation. The audience is removed and conversation is quieter and calmer. Systems that publicly highlight behaviour can in themselves be a catalyst for disruptive behaviour; pupils trying to covertly wipe their names off the board, children laughing at the misfortune of others, public arguments about who is on which sanction level etc. Names on the board with ticks and crosses make one pupil's behaviour everyone's business. If every child matters then they deserve private, individualized and personal interventions whenever possible.
For many graduated sanctions start with a warning, for others the suggestion of the consequence is given earlier and with more subtlety. Just as you pick up your stickers/positive notes/stars etc to encourage appropriate behaviour so you might gently waft your warning card near Clive's table, ask how his surname is spelt as you thumb your referral sheet or feign humorous shock and surprise at his choice of behaviour that lightens the moment. Teachers who launch into delivering sanctions at the first sniff of inappropriate behaviour often find themselves at the top of the sanctions ladder too quickly with no where else to go. It is easy to design a system that leads to the cliff edge of exclusion quickly; one that leaves eight year olds having exhausted every level of sanction. It takes more consistent effort to inch slowly up the ladder and each day start from the bottom again.
Effective sanctions for serial rule breakers are those which allow time for re establishing expectations, re chalking the boundary lines, repairing trust and making a commitment for the next lesson/day/10 minutes. Punitive sanctions satisfy the desire for mild revenge in the unenlightened, detach the punishment from the original rule break and make children resentful. Lines (yes they are still being used, widely), detentions that are not used to discuss behaviour, loss of time that is delegated to others, repeated sanctions that are subsumed into the schedule of the child's day (how many children spend every lunchtime inside yet their behaviour is the same), humiliation and disproportionate sanctions (‘Right that is the second time I have asked you to sit down, go and wait outside the headteacher's office') don't set the right model or have a positive impact on behaviour.
In many classrooms sanctions have become bargaining chips, ‘If I work hard for the next 10 minutes can you let me go out to play', is a tempting deal, particularly if you have been battling to get Kylie to emerge from under the table since she arrived.. If you give children the idea that 30 minutes of poor behaviour can be outweighed by 10 minutes of effort then expect them to seek this deal more often. Similarly threatening to withdraw a reward because of subsequent poor behaviour means that even positive consequences are negotiable. Skilled negotiators in year 4, who may already experience inconsistency at home, will protest at your inconsistency in the morning and use it to their advantage in the afternoon.
Some children who want to see how cross you get the higher up the sanctions list they go. They are used to sanctions being accompanied with a side dish of anger or a dressing of frustration. Removing the negative emotion from the delivery of the sanction is difficult in the to and fro of the day but is more than worth the extra effort. If Riana constantly gets the excitement of your angry face, the adrenalin of raised voices and the peer admiration for making an adult go red then she is encouraged to see the connection between her behaviour and how it your emotional state. Deliver your sanctions with a cold, bland, emotionless script. The sanction must be the discouragement and not the force of your emotion. In schools where a consistent effort is made to keep sanctions and emotions separate children become more resigned to the sanction and less likely to fight against it.
Relentless, dogged persistent follow up on children who avoid sanctions is time consuming and tedious but highly effective. Give children the idea that they can avoid sanctions or avoid difficult conversations with you by escalating, complaining to parents, running away, refusing to communicate, barking etc then they can easily get the idea that only ‘other people' can manage their behaviour. Pursuing Samuel for throwing the pencil when he subsequently threw the chair and the table may seem odd but you are sending him a consistent message. You will be there to ensure he takes responsibility for all of his behaviour, the little stuff, the big stuff and the ‘Miss, Samuel is throwing Hassan again, stuff!'
6 ways to add impact to your sanctions
- Design them so they can be delivered them as soon as possible after the event. It is not the severity of the sanction that has most impact but the speed with which it is delivered.
- Once given don't remove a sanction. Some children will get the idea that they are negotiable.
- Keep your response rational; indifference is better than indignation.
- Avoid passing sanctions for others to execute. Use the time to reconcile, repair and reset expectations.
- Tread carefully with public sanctions, private is preferable.
- Beware of ‘hovering', deliver the sanction and leave the child to think.