Micro-skills of

Behaviour
Management
A Model by
Christine Richmond
Presented by
South Western Sydney Regional Behaviour
Team

Participants Booklet One

Getting Organised
0

Contents
Introduction ....2
Minimal Management....3
Getting Organised..4
Space ..6
Time .....9
Activities ... 10
Transitions: developing routines of practice ... 11
Energy .. 14
The Balance Model ..15
Imbalances in Behaviour Management .16
Management Focused Language: Essential Skills ..18

Introduction
The content of this series of workshops is based entirely upon the work Of Dr
Christine Richmond.

Her Balance Model provides a minimalist approach to the

complexities of behaviour management and is equally applicable to primary and

secondary school settings.

These are great, common sense teaching practices

broken into easy to understand sections which in turn are easily implemented. The
micro-skills outlined in this program allow teachers to spend more time teaching and
less time managing behaviour. Their effectiveness has been proven over and over
again by numerous teachers within the South Western Sydney Region and beyond.
Some of the activities and participants notes in this program have been modified from
the Education Queensland program Better Behaviour Better Learning: Essential
Skills for Classroom Management. (2007)

References:
Richmond, C. (2007) Teach More Manage Less: A Minimalist Approach to Behaviour
Management. Scholastic: Sydney

Minimal Management
Where
is your
line?

Curriculum
Focused
Language

Estimate how much of a

one hour lesson you
would typically spend on
management
conversations.

Management
Focused
Language

minutes

Teacher language in the classroom is of two types. One is the discussions you have
about learning and curriculum, while the other is about behaviour management. By
consistently implementing the micro-skills presented in this program, teachers will be
able to reduce the time, energy and emotion devoted to management issues, thus
enabling them to spend more time and energy on learning focused conversations.

Getting Organised
Research into teaching has shown that those who are well organised inspire their
students to spend more time on-task.
Students who spend more time on-task achieve better academic outcomes and
spend less time disrupting.
Being organised makes a positive difference to the effectiveness of your teaching
and to the quality of student learning.
Before exploring issues relating to behaviour management practices with students
it is important to consider how you organise:

S pace
T ime
A ctivities
T ransitions
E nergy

S.T.A.T.E
Review Date: _____________________________

Organising the Learning Environment

Suggested Minimalist Organisational Strategies and Concepts

Yes/No/Consider

I arrange the learning space ahead of time whenever possible.

I prepare interesting lessons
I arrive at class ahead of time
I use a seating plan
I use a visible lesson plan so that students know what will happen.
I use a settling down activity
I encourage mini-breaks during extended sessions
I employ a clean-up process
I audit my classes to identify times when, and circumstances where,
students find it difficult to behave cooperatively.
I develop, teach and rehearse routines of practice in order to
encourage on-task and cooperative behaviour.
What I plan to do in order to refine my organisational practices:

Richmond, (2007) Teach More Manage Less: A Minimalist Approach to Behaviour Management. Scholastic: Sydney

Space
Preparing Your Teaching/Learning Space
Complete the following checklist
Preparing the venue

Its fine

I can fix it

Outsource

The learning space is clean

Furniture is clean and in working order
Materials are accessible
Materials are in labelled compartments
Entry/exit area is clear
Within-class movement routes are clear
Information display surfaces are visible
Electrical equipment is in good order
There are current appropriate displays
Desks are arranged in a logical order

It is very difficult to work effectively in a chaotic space

Teachers who leave a classrooms without re-establishing order, leave a legacy of
chaos for the colleagues who subsequently use those rooms. It is very difficult to
engage students when you are required to simultaneously organise the learning
space and begin the lesson.
Here are some tips for more mobile teachers.
Invest in a large, light, portable container that can be towed on wheels. Keep it
packed with things like whiteboard pens, overhead transparencies and pens,
sharpened pencils, rulers, erasers, glue and scrap paper. Include a large
laminated copy of your expectations for behaviour.
As soon as you arrive at the classroom, send in two students to move desks and
one to move chairs into place. Ask another two to clean boards and pick up litter.
As this is carried out, while remaining outside, greet the remainder of the class.
Before ushering them in, ensure that students have the materials required for

your lesson. As soon as the students are seated, give them a short task that can
be completed independently. This buys you time to complete the preparation of
the venue for the lesson.
Allow time at the end of the lesson to return the classroom to an appropriate order
in consideration of others to follow.

Seating Plans
The seating plan is a deceptively simple and highly effective organisational
strategy that has the potential to discourage disruption and promote on-task
behaviour
Seating plans can be as simple as:
1.

Using alphabetical order

2.

Alternating students by gender

3.

Creating gender specific groups

4.

Drawing names out of a hat

Seating plans can also be as complex as you desire involving social diagrams
where you investigate who prefers to work with whom and why.
You may consider ability groupings.
Some teachers change the imposed seating plan each month, or each term, so
that students have an opportunity to work with a number of different peers during
the year.
Consider the impact of rows vs groups and the position of your desk.

Activity One My Classroom

In the space below draw the layout of the classroom in which you spend the most
time. Note the following on your diagram:
The arrangement of desks including yours

Mark any area where you ask students to sit on the floor

The location of chalk/white boards

The location of information displays

The location of computers etc.

The location of a timeout space if you use one

The location of regularly used materials

Any entry/exit points

Mark high traffic areas

Time
Effective time organisation tools facilitate predictability.
When predictability increases, anxiety diminishes.

Some examples include:

Visual timetables
Diaries (teacher and student)
Whiteboard displays
Lesson schedules written on board
Calendars
Regular routines and patterns to lessons/days/weeks
Known changes in routine communicated beforehand

Activities
The way you organise learning activities can enhance
student engagement and reduce disruption.
Design a short activity that students can do independently as soon as they enter
the classroom.
Immediately follow a particularly challenging activity with a less demanding one.
In heavy-duty theory lessons, allow students to have 2 minute mini-breaks every
10 15 minutes.
Double periods require at least one substantial break or several shorter ones.

Checklist for Organising Activities in a Lesson

Use this checklist to help you identify organisational strategies relevant
to your work. Add others that you know work for you or your colleagues.
Activities

Currently do

Calm down and focus

Introduction
Mini-breaks
10 15 minute activities
Substantial break in double periods/long sessions
Follow challenging activities with easy activities
Wrap up

Use this space to record ideas for settling and lesson break activities youd like to try.

10

Will try

Transitions
Students are much more likely to make mistakes with their behaviour at
transition times.
Transitions are times when students move as a group. Everyday transitions can
include:
Entering the room
Leaving the room
Distributing materials
Setting up equipment
Cleaning up
Moving furniture
Negotiating stairs
Moving into and out of group configurations
Moving from class to class

Developing Routines of Practice

Routines of practice are procedures required of students (either individually or in
groups) that facilitate productive participation in lessons.
These routines involve some kind of movement such as coming into and out of
the learning space, as well as shifting from place to place within the classroom.
How
1. Identify the movements (transitions) that students have to make in your lessons.
2. Develop particular routines of practice to facilitate effective transitions.
3. Teach these routines of practice as part of the curriculum, and require students to
achieve mastery through repeated practice.

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Transition
Moving into the classroom
Finding a place to work
Collecting equipment
Cleaning equipment
Signalling for attention
Leaving the room

Routine of practice
Students line up outside the classroom and wait until
the teacher signals for them to enter
Students sit in an allocated position that changes on
the first school day of each month
Group leaders collect equipment and distribute it to
their team members
Students take turns to be rostered onto a designated
clean-up crew that collects, cleans and returns
equipment to storage
Students put up their hands and wait until the teacher
signals he or she has noticed. Students go on with
other work as they wait for attention
Students who have packed up wait quietly for the
teachers leave signal

Teaching and rehearsing Routines of Practice

Once you have developed simple routines of practice that have the potential to
reduce disruption, you need to teach them to your students and provide opportunities
for them to rehearse. There are many ways to teach routines of practice. Here are a
few examples:
Have visual supports while students are learning a new routine and use them to
guide students step by step through the process.
Use a tangible object for learning to take turns at speaking (e.g. a toy
microphone)
Line markings can remind students where they should walk, wait, sit etc.
Set challenges and make a game out of the rehearsal, for example, students can
try and beat the clock during pack up time.
Walk out quietly if your name starts with a B, is one example of making the
rehearsal less tedious.
The good old do it again, and again, and again until you get it right technique.
This is important in the early days with your class to clearly establish your
expectations.

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Activity Two Transitions

In two minutes write as many transitions as you can that occur in
your classroom/s during a typical day.

Choose one of these which creates problems and develop a routine of practice to
improve it.

How will you teach it? Where will students practise?

13

Energy
Daily Behaviours that sustain energy
At least 6 hours uninterrupted sleep
Healthy breakfast
Healthy lunch
30 minutes of robust physical exercise
Several glasses of water
Little or no alcohol on school nights
Laughing at something or with someone

Currently do

Will try

Unless you are well-disciplined, the chances are that one or more of the key
behaviours in the checklist are not achieved on a daily basis. If you slip up with one
or more, then you need to make an effort with the others in order to maintain a
suitable demeanour for effective behaviour management.
Finally you need to also consider how to sustain energy over the long haul and avoid
burn-out.
Use this space to record ideas from the group that you would like to try.

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The Balance Model

The Balance Model is made up of three sets of information (Richmond 2002):
1. The strategies teachers use to teach their expectations to students.
2. How teachers acknowledge students when they are behaving appropriately.
3. How teachers correct students when they behave inappropriately.
The Micro-skills of Behaviour Management are directly related to setting
expectations, acknowledging appropriate behaviour and correcting
inappropriate behaviour.

When a teacher is said to be in balance in the

classroom, they have:
clearly articulated their expectations to students
established an evenness (balance) in their use of verbal and non-verbal
language to acknowledge appropriate behaviour and correct
inappropriate behaviour.
This is represented by The Balance Model of Behaviour Management.

Timely Correction of
Inappropriate
Behaviour

Acknowledgement of
Prosocial Behaviour

Clear
Expectations

15

Imbalances in
behaviour
Management
It is probably impossible to maintain a balance of expectations, acknowledging and
correcting strategies all of the time. The problem arises when the imbalance is
prolonged and becomes embedded in your behaviour management style. The
following are three typical imbalances which increase the likelihood of teachers
spending too much time managing and too little time teaching.

Imbalance One
Unclear expectations
The teacher gives inadequate information
about his or her expectations (as indicated by

the broken line around the triangle). This is

problematic because students will be unsure

about the limits and boundaries of the

classroom and what tasks they need to be
doing.

Imbalance Two
Too much acknowledgement

This is problematic because students are not

being corrected appropriately. This is often
the result of teachers trying to manage
through friendliness. They believe If I am
nice to the students they will like me and
behave themselves. This imbalance may

16

A
E

also arise when the teacher lacks

assertiveness.

17

Imbalance Three
Too much correction
Students become resentful and continue to act
inappropriately due to a lack of

acknowledgment and encouragement. In this

imbalance a teacher may not intend to be
negative, but has developed the habit of only
attending to inappropriate behaviour. In most
cases where a whole class behaves

inappropriately, this is the evident imbalance.

On any given day, a teacher may shift from one imbalance to another
Over time, effective classroom management that promotes cooperation should allow
for a steady increase in the acknowledgement rate with a corresponding decrease in
the correction rate. Therefore, there will not necessarily be an ongoing even
balance between acknowledgement and correction (Richmond C. 2007). There is
no need to use unnecessary correction to balance the acknowledgement in such a
classroom.
Behaviour management imbalances can unintentionally incite, contribute to, or
exacerbate problematic behaviour. It is important, therefore, to review how you
attend to each of the three strategic components that are identified in the Balance
Model. The next three workshops describe strategies pertaining to these three
components in turn.
Like the organisational strategies we have covered in this workshop, the
expectations strategies in workshop two are proactive in nature. The
acknowledging and correcting strategies outlined in workshops three and four
make up a reactive behaviour management toolbox. It is important that you attend
to both proactive and reactive strategies in order to refine your behaviour
management repertoire.

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Management Focused Language: Essential

Skills
Language of expectation
Establishing expectations
Giving instructions
Waiting and scanning
Cueing with parallel
acknowledgement
Student ontask

Student offtask

Language of
acknowledgement
Body language
encouraging
Descriptive encouraging

Language of correction
Selective attending
Redirecting to the learning
Giving a choice
Following through

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