Getting the Work Done

Q. I'd like to begin by saying how much I enjoy your advice as given through Teachers TV, and two of your books which I have purchased: 'Getting the Buggers to Behave' and 'Teaching Skills for Dummies'. These books have been invaluable, but as this is only my second year of primary teaching, I feel I still have a lot to learn. This year there are no major behaviour problems in my (shared) class. However, there is quite a lot of low level disruption: calling out, chatting during silent activities, leaving seats. This however is not my main issue. My main issue relates to children not finishing work. I have around 9 out of 24 children who never seem to get tasks finished. Despite the use of timers, sanctions and rewards, these children never seem to get finished. Is it perhaps that I am expecting too much? How can I deal with these children? I am unable to leave them in school during break times unsupervised, and short of giving up my own breaks everyday, I don't know what to do.

There is one extreme case of work avoidance. This little girl will do NOTHING! If I stand over her she may write a date and heading, but she often just ignores the fact that I am there. Her parents know, and this has been going on for years. She is very bright, and eloquent, and in class discussions or oral exercises, she can always give the correct answer. The work is not too challenging. As there are other children in the class requiring support, I can't sit beside her all day. Sue, any advice would really help! Thank you!

A. Thanks for your message, it's great to hear that you've found my books helpful. I've got a few thoughts for you which you could try, maybe something below will work, I do hope so!

- Make finishing the written work a condition of doing something exciting, e.g. write these key words and then you get to do the practical bit. Or, make the writing come out of something exciting so it doesn't seem like work. For instance, with the crime scene lesson described on my website, the children are given a 'police report' to complete and they have to do this in order to be able to progress their investigation and move onto the bit where they interview witnesses.

- Draw a line on the page as a target to work towards. Having this visual target can be helpful. Sometimes time targets make kids panic and freeze, while a 'how much work to do' target is more effective.

- Have you tried some cloze procedure activities as maybe this is a fear of writing? These are activities where some of the text is there, and the children then have to just fill in the blanks.

- Use rewards that require the peer group to work together to achieve them. This puts the pressure on those children from their peers, rather than from you, which can often be more effective. For instance, if everyone finishes, the whole class gets a treat of some kind, but if anyone doesn't finish, the treat is deferred for another time.

- Have a think also about the kind of tasks you're setting as well, perhaps breaking things down into smaller chunks and pulling the class back together after each one is finished.

- Consider also different ways of approaching tasks, for instance recording ideas before writing them, typing straight onto a computer. Maybe offering these more exciting tasks to those children who completed the writing in the previous lesson.

With the girl who's ignoring you, this is a classic wind up designed to get you cross. What you need to do is to say to her that you know she can hear, and from then on, just assume that she has heard what you've said. Essentially she has a choice, she can either do the work during lesson time, or unfortunately it will have to be done at another time, i.e. during her breaks or at home. It sounds like she is used to manipulating adults and she is trying it on you as well.

You might also find that giving up your own breaks to keep the children in is worth it in the short term, it could take a week or two for them to understand the consequences, but I would probably give it a go if nothing else works.

Also, presumably you have liaised with the teacher working the other 2 days with the class about this - are there any strategies that work for him/her? Could it be that the children are playing you off against each other? Make sure that your rules and expectations are the same, and that you are both consistent with the sanctions that you use. (If she is keeping them in and you don't this creates an obvious inconsistency that the children will play on).

Good luck, let me know how it goes!