Teachers play a key role in creating safe, supportive and inclusive learning environments, including preventing and responding to escalation. Many factors influence students’ emotional regulation, and some students may require targeted support from their teachers to help them regulate their emotions and behaviour. This practice guide will assist you in creating calm learning environments, helping to prevent emotional and behavioural escalation, and supporting students when it occurs.
The way you interact with and respond to students can have a positive or negative influence on their behaviour. This practice guide acknowledges the key role you play in:
- fostering calm, supportive learning environments
- helping students build emotional and behavioural regulation skills
- recognising signs of emotional and behavioural escalation
- guiding and supporting students when it occurs.
You can use this guide to identify your strengths and prioritise the area for refinement you’ll focus on first.
This practice guide is part of the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO)’s suite of classroom management resources and guidance for supporting students’ diverse needs, which supports teachers and school leaders in establishing learning environments where all students can thrive and achieve. These resources can be used individually to reflect on and refine your own practice, or as shared resources to support mentoring and a whole-school approach to classroom management. They’re designed to inform and complement rather than replace existing school and system policies, procedures and guidance.
Keywords: student engagement, disruption, disruptive behaviour, student behaviour