Below is Paul Dix's answer to a behaviour question asked by a TES reader. The response was published in the TES:
The Problem:
I'm doing supply, and eight boys in my class of 30 are unruly. Although I have applied the school's behaviour policy, if I ask them to do something they don't want to do it results in kicking furniture and sulking under tables. How can I prevent disruption?
The Expert View:
Supply teachers pick up the baggage when they take over a class. Children feel let down. You will need to work hard to deal with the broken trust even though you didn't cause it. Children don't like it when adults who they thought were going to be there leave. Some are upset, others see the gap and exploit it.
You need to build trust with this group of boys while delivering consequences without flare-ups. There will be no excuse or motivation for the defensive reactions you are seeing.
You can follow policy to the letter, but it is in your practice that the answers lie. When you intervene, the pacing of the consequential steps is critical. Leap through the consequence ladder with emotion and you will appear unfair and irrational. You will encourage emotional responses. Apply sanctions softly by using examples of the child's previous good behaviour. Get down on their eye level, be utterly dispassionate, go slowly and give children time to consider their next move. Constantly encourage pupils to take a different path. Be firm and rarely angry.
Ask more established colleagues for guidance and advice. Ask them to drop in and send the boys to them when they do something remarkable. Record in detail the good and bad, then bring in parents for the trickier cases. If you need to tackle group behaviour, deal with pupils one or two at a time.
Go out of your way to make the children who are disrupting the class feel important and appreciated for the right reasons. You need to find out what interests and motivates the boys who are rebelling. Taking an interest in an individual is the first step to building an appropriate professional relationship.