Technique 24 of Teach Like a Champion is Circulate: Move strategically around the room during all parts of the lesson. The justification for this is that it’s easier to manage behaviour and to give students feedback on their work.
This is one of the few techniques in the book that I remain unconvinced by. Most of the supposed ‘advantages’ of circulating can usually be achieved more effectively by sitting down at the front of the class (during the teaching input) or the back of the class (during any extended periods of independent work).
It is true that if a child is not focused or is misbehaving, walking towards him is likely to encourage immediate compliance. It’s also true that a quiet word is sometimes useful.
However, there are often more effective ways of ensuring that students are focused which don’t require any movement from me at all.
‘Sit down’ behaviour management
If, for example, a child is gazing out of the window rather than looking at me or the board during the teaching input, what I will often do is continue teaching but only look at that one child, who will eventually look back to find me staring straight at him. I then hold eye contact for a few more seconds before looking elsewhere. This clearly sends the message that ‘I want you to be focused’ and the fact that this tends to make the child feel slightly uncomfortable ensures that he is unlikely to want to repeat the off-task behaviour. The longer the child remains unfocused, the more other children start to notice what I’m doing, so it sends the message to all children that if they want to avoid such potential (mild) embarrassment, they will need to re-engage themselves quickly if they do ever accidentally ‘switch off’.
Alternatively, I can simply stay sat at my desk and take a Dojo point off. This causes a ‘boom’ noise so the class knows that a Dojo point has been removed. I rarely give any explanation of why I have done this, unless it is the start of the year (when my expectations may still be unclear) so again, it does not interrupt the flow of the lesson. And often, when children are working independently, the board is ‘frozen’, so they don’t know who lost the Dojo point – they don’t know whether or not it was them. This is especially effective because every child who was off-task will immediately think, ‘Was that me?’ and know that I might be feeling slightly disappointed in them. This means that all children who were even slightly off-task will try to improve their effort, whereas with the ‘proximity’ strategy, only the individual student who I have walked towards is likely to do so. (The same is true when children hear the ‘ding’ of a positive Dojo point: they don’t know if the ‘ding’ was for them, but they do know that I’m on the lookout for children who are working hard, so it encourages them to continue to do so – or start doing so.)
Problems with circulating to manage behaviour
While these ‘sit down’ strategies do aim to cause slight discomfort, they are never interpreted by children as being intimidating or threatening, as walking towards and towering over a young child might be (if not done subtly and appropriately).
Moreover, far from proximity helping to ‘make it clear to children that you own the room’ (as claimed in Teach Like a Champion) it actually does the opposite: it conveys that you expect students to behave when you enter their proximity, but also suggests that in order to achieve such desirable behaviour, you should have to inconvenience yourself by moving around, rather than expecting compliance at all times no matter where you are in the room.
Additionally, it’s difficult to ensure that children are focused if you can’t see them because your back is turned. This is why, during independent work, I often sit at the back of the class, behind the children (who sit in rows facing forwards) and call children up, two at a time, to give them feedback on their work. The rest of the class can’t see me, but I can see them – and they don’t know whether or not I’m watching.
The importance of minimal narration
Although I’ve argued that ‘sit down’ behaviour management strategies can be more effective than proximity-based ones, the two strategies that I’ve suggested (looking at children who are distracted and using Dojo points) are silent ones, and this is important. Constantly narrating who is working hard and who needs to improve will distract students from the content of the lesson and therefore harm learning, so I will always use silent strategies first.
But what if these are not sufficient?
If a child is misbehaving, other children are likely to have noticed, so it’s usually a public reprimand from the front of the class, not a quiet word sitting next to the child, that is needed, because I need to clearly indicate to all children that this just isn’t how we do things in this classroom. By ‘a public reprimand’ I don’t mean shouting; I mean calmly but firmly asking ‘What should you be doing right now?’ or stating ‘I’m not happy – I’ll speak to you at the end of the lesson.’ Sometimes, it also means calmly insisting, ‘That’s not acceptable – you need to leave the classroom.’
If children are behaving well, I will usually save the praise until the end of the lesson, when we’re tidying up, lining up to go to break or having a brief reflection on our morning/day, rather than giving it immediately. This is important because it communicates to children that I do notice when they are working hard, but also means that during the lesson, all children are able to devote all of their mental energy (or cognitive load) to the task at hand, rather than being distracted by comments from me (including ones not directed towards them) that have nothing to do with the work they’re doing. It means that I can focus entirely on providing children feedback on their work or on giving some children additional support (by calling them up to me). And it encourages good habits of self-reliance and independence, as children can too easily become dependent on constant encouragement and overly-needy for immediate praise.
‘Energy’ during the teaching input
In Teach Like a Champion it’s claimed that constantly circulating the classroom ‘adds energy to your teaching’ and ‘allows you to observe what students are doing’.
But standing up, walking around and crouching down next to children requires effort and so – I speak from personal experience here – is in fact more likely to diminish your energy and make you exhausted, reducing your effectiveness. Of course, it can sometimes be used effectively in short bursts – there are times when I do get up and walk around the classroom – but too many lesson observers unjustifiably equate a teacher sitting at his desk for large parts of the lesson with the teacher being lazy.
When explaining new content, I occasionally stand up to point at things or write notes on the white board, but a lot of the time, I stay sitting down. Explaining, questioning, reading from the board – these can all be done sat down, and given that sitting down is more comfortable, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be. Most of the time, sitting down is actually more effective than standing, because it means I can have notes in front of me on my desk (or use ‘Presenter view’ with notes on PowerPoint if I have the computer in front of me), reminding me of specific questions I need to ask or children I need to focus on. If I’m at my desk, it also makes it much easier to jot down anything that I might need to follow up on later (such as names of children who might need some additional support or feedback from me later on).
Won’t sitting down during the teaching input make children think that I lack interest and motivation? No. Teachers who usually teach standing up or moving around may find that when they do sit down, children perceive them to be less interested or motivated. But that’s probably because they sit down only when they’re feeling tired, and so are less interested and motivated! If you usually teach standing up, but teach sitting down when you’re feeling tired, of course students will associate you sitting down with your lack of interest. But if you regularly teach sitting down, that association will not be formed.
What about during partner talk?
Shouldn’t teachers at least walk around when we ask children to talk to their partners, so that we can hear the conversations that they are having, or so that children know that we’re listening as they respond, or so that we can target specific children to focus in on?
Sometimes this can be useful, but even here, I often sit at my desk.
If I walk around the room, I rarely find that the snippets of conversations I hear give me an accurate picture of the understanding of the whole class.
And walking over to specific children as they discuss makes it far more difficult to monitor what the whole class is doing. Is everyone talking? Who has stopped talking? Who hasn’t even started talking? Do children mostly look interested or bored? Excited or confused? It is useful for teachers to know the answers to these questions, and sitting at the front, observing the children, is the best way for me to get an accurate picture of this.
I’ve found that sometimes, if I go over to a specific pair during partner talk, I can have a really productive conversation with those two children… but then not realise that I have let a partner discussion that was meant to last for 30 seconds go on for several minutes, and that most other children have lost interest and stopped talking. Perhaps teachers who circulate gradually develop better time management, but for me, it’s certainly much more difficult.
But isn’t staying at my desk demotivating for the children, especially those at the back, who know that I am unlikely to hear their conversation? No; in fact, staying at my desk makes it clear that I’ve asked the question because it will help them learn and prepare for the rest of the lesson, and I always follow up partner talk activities with a cold call, asking a child to share what they and their partner were discussing with the rest of the class.
Benefits of sitting behind children
What about independent work? Ideally, there would be far less of it in primary schools: I don’t understand why we insist on asking children to regularly produce multi-paragraph compositions independently even when they struggle to write a basic sentence. Lessons composed of more explicit instruction, worked examples and short tasks for children to complete would be far more effective, but ‘quantity of work in books’ remains a priority of senior staff in most schools and so inevitably, in most lessons, there will have to be an extended period set for independent work.
But when children are completing this work, rather than circulating, what I like to do is sit on a table at the back of the classroom and call children up, usually two at a time, to show me their book.
The problem with circulating is that as I walk around the class, I’m not close enough to the children’s books to actually be able to read what they’ve written. Although I can pick children’s books up to read, this makes it harder to point out the specific sentences (or parts of the work) that I want to give feedback on and also means that I can’t write in children’s books as easily. Alternatively, I could crouch down next to children or drag a chair around the classroom with me, but this is uncomfortable and unnecessary.
So instead, when independent work starts, I sit at the back and call children up to me, giving each child about two minutes of individual feedback. This does not give me enough time to feedback to every child in the class in each lesson, but does give me the time to see the books of about half of the class, which gives me an accurate picture of how children have generally done.
I have two children sitting next to me at a time, because then I can give a short editing task to one child (e.g., “Check your tense in that sentence” or “You need a capital letter for a proper noun in this paragraph”) and then switch to the other. Obviously, the first two children I call up won’t have had a chance to start today’s work, so here, I choose children who have something that I need to address based on yesterday’s work.
Calling up children to the back of the class is especially useful when the table at the back is some distance from where other children are working, because it means that the rest of the class can focus on their work without getting distracted by the feedback I’m giving to the two individual children who I’ve called up.
One thing that I discourage during independent work is children putting their hands up to ask me for feedback on what they have written. The reason for this is that it’s always the highest-attaining children who do this, and rarely the children who actually need the most help. I find that children who are already fluent writers regularly ask me to check the accuracy of a sentence or paragraph that they have composed, but those who struggle rarely request any help at all.
And if I walk around the room, a higher-attaining child will often ask me a great question as I walk past – one which is insightful, perceptive and relevant to the lesson. So all too often, I get drawn into a detailed discussion with that higher-attaining child which stretches their thinking far beyond the curriculum requirements. This would be a good thing, if not for the fact that while this is happening, there are likely to be other children in the class who have not fully grasped the basic objective of the lesson and are being left to struggle on their own. So instead, during independent work, I usually only take questions from children who I have called over to me, not from any child who puts their hand up. This makes individual feedback fairer (allowing me to focus more on those children who need the most help) and easier to manage.
When circulating is (occasionally) useful
The only time that I do sometimes walk around the classroom is when I set a formative assessment task for children to complete on their white boards. This might be to combine sentences, complete sentences, use specific words in a sentence or complete a Maths problem that requires multiple steps to solve. Because it’s completed on a white board, I don’t need to crouch down to see what children have written, and it does sometimes give me a clearer idea of the misconceptions that children may have or which specific step of a multi-step problem they are having difficulty with.
However, the majority of formative assessment can be done from the front of the classroom. Once most children are finished, I tell children the answer and say “Hands up if you got that right” to assess how children have done. If I am already sure what the misconceptions are likely to be, perhaps because I’ve taught the topic before, then moving around to look at white boards doesn’t provide much additional benefit (but does still have the disadvantages that I’ve already mentioned). Furthermore, multiple choice questions can be structured to suggest what the misconceptions are, with each wrong answer revealing a likely misconception that students may have.
I also think that a lot of formative assessment tasks could be completed in children’s books rather than white boards, even though this does make it more difficult for me to see what children are writing as they’re writing it. The main advantage of completing these tasks in books is that children have something permanent that they can refer back to, whereas white boards will obviously end up getting wiped. And with formative assessment, if only one or two children have made a mistake, this usually means that I move on quickly with the lesson, but if children have written in their books, I’m reminded who those one or two children are when as I look at the books later on, so can see who might need some extra support the following lesson.
Conclusion
My view is that circulating is rarely necessary and often unproductive. I’ve not been able to find any research evidence on how teacher positioning affects student learning, probably because it’s not an area where a randomised controlled trial could be easily conducted due to an impossibly large number of potential variables. But there is little reason to think that students make more progress with teachers who regularly circulate the classroom, and some good reasons to believe that teachers who regularly stay sitting down may be more effective.
If I sit down at the front or back of the room, I can see the whole class, which makes it easier to manage behaviour and observe what all children are doing. It is less tiring so makes it easier for me to maintain my energy and enthusiasm throughout the school day. When I’m sitting at a desk, I’m able to easily refer to notes which remind me of anything I need to do in the lesson or any children I need to focus on. I’m also more easily able to jot down anything that I may need to follow up on later on in the lesson. As well as keeping track of what the whole class are doing, by staying sat down and calling children up to me during independent work, I can make sure I spend the necessary amount of time with each child, focusing on those who need the most support, and avoid getting distracted by the questions and comments that higher-attaining children tend to ask me as I walk past if I circulate. Sitting down and calling children over to me also makes it easier to point out what specific parts of their work children need to improve and easier for me model what I want them to do by writing in their books (or on a mini white board). Circulating is occasionally useful for formative assessment tasks, but even here, a simple ‘Hands up if you got that right’ usually tells me all I need to know.
So why do teachers circulate? I expect it’s for much the same reason that teachers write detailed feedback in books and regularly update their displays: it looks good. It suggests that they care. It indicates that they’re prepared to work hard. But does it actually benefit children’s learning? I suspect not.
Key Stage 2 English 