'We need fewer raised voices and more empathy in the classroom'

If you make the effort to know your kids, have a laugh with them, have rapport with them – and this is the crucial thing – when things go wrong, if a kid tells you to go f*** yourself, it’s never personal.

When they come in the next day it’s a fresh start, so you don’t take them outside that first period and go ‘We’ll have no more of that like we had yesterday’. Someone else has probably had that conversation. You give them a fresh start and a fresh opportunity.

Make mistakes in front of your kids, show them that it’s okay to be vulnerable. The amount of spelling mistakes that I’ve made on my whiteboard, and I don’t try to smudge it out and hide it. I ask ‘Who can spot the spelling mistake? Who can tell me where I’ve done something wrong?’ and you own it and you make it fun. These are all little things that you need to do to build a relationship.

I’m known in my school for having a safe, comfortable classroom environment. That doesn’t mean I can’t be strict when necessary, or firm, or clear with my expectations, but your default should always be friendly, accepting and non-judgemental.

And then, from a discipline point of view, if you do need to go from Jekyll to Hyde it’s all the more effective, but that NEVER involves shouting. You only shout when there’s a risk of danger. I broke up a fight today, so I shouted then.

Shouting, belittling and embarrassing young people was very commonplace when I was at school. That doesn’t happen anymore because you need to build trust and relationships, and you just can’t take anything for granted.

You can’t assume that, even when someone comes in and they’re very physically well-presented and they look happy and enthusiastic, they’re going to just be your little servant and they’re going to follow your every command.

The thing that I would say to a lot of young teachers is to treat these young people the same way that you would treat someone in public. If you saw someone in public who was being drunk and disorderly, it’s a bit of an inconvenience, but most of us nowadays would think ‘Well, what’s the story behind that? Why are they doing that? What’s the vulnerability there?’.

It’s when you see someone who’s clearly addicted to a Class A drug, they might be disruptive in the moment but anyone with compassion would say ‘Well isn’t there a bit of a tragedy there? Hasn’t someone failed them at some point in their life and that’s led to them being in this situation?’.

I sometimes feel that there can be some – and I think this is very much a minority of teachers – who just leave that, and they almost project their own teaching experience on the young people, and they want to just command respect immediately, just because they’re older.

You remember being a teenager – you don’t just instantly respect people, no matter what their age is. You show them respect, they show you respect. We need to be trusted.

Sign up for The Secret Teacher newsletter and receive a weekly update inside the staff room. You'll also get features like The Staff Room, Tweet of the Week, Quote of the Week and Today's Lesson included.

👉 Click to sign up