Swinson Jeremy - Positive psychology for teachers

Practical, actionable information about the positive behavioural approach to education is in desperately short supply, and yet when implemented properly the impact on school behaviour and achievement can be enormous.

Positive Psychology for Teachers aims to address this gap. Written by experienced practitioners, it gives teachers simple and direct advice on how they can use the positive behavioural approach for the benefit of their pupils and schools.

Based on the authors own experiences of intervention in school settings and evidence of its effectiveness, this practical guide includes a number of vignettes and case studies illustrating how the behavioural approach has been used by teachers in a wide variety of classrooms to make their teaching more effective. Each case study will be followed by a number of suggested practical activities for classroom implementation. Throughout the book, background theory is explained in a concise and easily digestible manner and activities are clearly explained, with benefits and end goals clearly signposted.

Areas covered include:

• Whole school interventions, turning around under-performance
• Reducing disruptive behaviour in the classroom
• Improving creative writing and increasing reading attainment
• Improving pupils self-concepts
• SEN interventions including autism, children with challenging behaviour and those classified as having social, emotional and behavioural difficulties
• The difference between teachers treatment of boys and of girls
• Strategies for turning around the behaviour of very difficult pupils

This practical user-friendly text is aimed directly at trainee and practising teachers but would also be very relevant to those working with trainee teachers in university departments and to educational psychologists.

Jeremy Swinson is Principal Educational Psychologist for the Witherslack Group of Schools.

Alex Harrop is Emeritus Professor in Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2012 Jeremy Swinson and Alex Harrop

The right of Jeremy Swinson and Alex Harrop to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

1. Educational psychology. 2. Classroom management. 3. Behavior

modifi cation. I. Harrop, Alex. II. Title.
LB1051.S94 2012
370.15dc23

2011049346

ISBN: 978 041568676 1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978 041568677 8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978 020380006 5 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

This book is dedicated to Michael Harrop and Andrew Swinson, both of whom died too young to show the world what might have been.

In writing this book, we have been influenced by many friends and colleagues who have shaped our thinking and been critical judges of our various endeavours. We would especially like to thank Mike Cording and Richard Melling who were instrumental in developing Four Essential Steps and Brian Parsons who read the initial drafts of this book and gave us some thought-provoking feedback from a teachers perspective. We would also like to thank the teachers and pupils who over the past 30 years have allowed us to observe them in their classrooms.

Finally, thanks are due to our respective partners, Sally and Lynne, without whose tolerance, good humour and cups of tea this book would not have been completed.