Brady and Scully state that, the principles of classroom management are: “to engage students, establish rules, develop culture, selecting appropriate strategies, promoting self-disciple and practicing consistency”. I agree with these and see my role as a teacher aligning more with a Collaborative Learning Theory, rather than a purely Constructivist approach. I believe that instead of driving the lesson alone I am guiding and working with the students to facilitate and provide support during the lesson.

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I believe that children learn based upon pre-existing knowledge. They are constantly observing their world around them and forming opinions and judgments. I also believe that all students have the ability to achieve, by having these high expectations of our students we are able fulfill our professional responsibilities to create challenging learning goals as stipulated in Standard 3 from AISTL Professional Standards for Teacher.

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The causes for students’ behaviours, both positive and negative, are multi-layered and can be influenced by many factors such as their environment, themselves or their teacher. For instance, they may have had an argument before class, that impacts on their mood and therefore their behaviour for the lesson following this incident.I do not believe that this word punishment should be used in the classroom. The connotations are too negative, and can bring with it thoughts of pain and suffering for the students. Punishment brings with it imbalances of power and oppression, neither of which are things you want to bring to the classroom.  

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To ensure that we meet our responsibilities in the classroom we must teach students content and social skills. It is more beneficial to get the student involved in finding ways to self-manage and provide them with strategies to do so. In doing so we are modelling to students that mistakes are ok and providing them with life skills to use throughout their lives.