Pupil Behaviour and Teacher Culture

In addition to bearing the responsibility for delivering the National Curriculum, schools are charged with the task of ensuring good conduct in their pupils. However, whereas each small step within the Curriculum is prescribed by government, notions of acceptable pupil behaviour are stated only in the most general of terms.;This text provides a detailed examination of successful achievements in asserting discipline in schools. It presents the results of a national survey of educational psychologists detailing 68 interventions with difficult pupils. It also summarizes the actions most often associated with successful outcomes. It then examines the results of in-depth interviews with 24 teachers, who describe successful work with pupils who, in many cases, have proved to be the most difficult they have encountered. Despite this, the teachers and educational psychologists have achieved considerable and even dramatically unexpected improvements.