Bill Rogers’ approach to behaviour management starts with the smallest response that will do the job, and only steps up when it has to. You deal with the behaviour you want to change, not the arguing that comes with it, and you keep your language calm and short. Then you follow up later, in private, when there’s no audience.
That’s the heart of it. The rest is a set of habits that get you through a wet Thursday afternoon with Year 9.
Who is Bill Rogers?
Bill Rogers is an Australian educator whose books and training on classroom behaviour have been used in UK schools for years. His name turns up in initial teacher training and behaviour policies, and in a lot of staffroom advice where nobody says where it came from.
People like his work because it’s practical. It gives you something to say and do in the moment, and it treats behaviour as something a teacher can shape with their own words and manner.
What is the Bill Rogers approach in a nutshell?
The ideas most linked with him fit together as a ladder. You start at the bottom with the least intrusive response and climb only as far as you need to.
- Tactically ignore what you can, especially attention-seeking behaviour, so you keep teaching.
- Send a non-verbal message: a look, a pause, moving closer.
- Ask a low-key question or remind them of the rule (“What should you be doing?”).
- Give a simple direction, followed by “thank you”.
- Offer a choice, with the consequence your school’s policy allows.
- Follow up after the lesson.
Most low-level disruption stops at the first two or three rungs. Every step up costs you lesson time and puts the relationship under more strain, so a pupil tapping a pencil doesn’t need the top of the ladder.
Why statements work better than questions
This is the change that makes the quickest difference. A pupil walks in late and you say, “Why are you late?” You’ve just invited an answer, the whole class is listening, and you’ve stopped teaching. “Why aren’t you working?” and “Why are you out of your seat, Charlie?” do the same thing.
Try a statement that says what you want.
- “Good to see you. Here’s your work, sit down and I’ll come and help in a minute.”
- “Open your book at page five. I’ll be over shortly.”
- “I need you to try two more questions.”
- “I don’t expect that language in the classroom, please. Now, let’s see how far you’ve got.”
Positive phrasing helps too. “I’d like everyone facing this way” lands better than “Stop turning round”. And talk about the behaviour, not the person: “I need everyone in their seats” rather than “Charlie, you’re out of your seat again”.
What are primary and secondary behaviours?
The primary behaviour is the thing you need to change: Lee is out of his seat. The secondary behaviour is what comes with it once you ask him to sit down. The sigh, the eye roll, “I was only helping Mark”.
Chase the secondary behaviour and you end up in a debate, which the class will enjoy far more than your lesson. So acknowledge it briefly and bring it back to the primary behaviour: “That may be true, you might have been helping Mark. I need you back in your seat doing your own work. Thanks.” If Mark needs help, he can put his hand up.
You can deal with the attitude later, privately, if it still matters. Usually it doesn’t.
Choices, take-up time and following up
When a direction doesn’t work, a choice gives a pupil a way to back down without losing face. “You can work quietly by yourself, or come and sit here with me.” Or “when, then”: “When you’ve tidied your desk, then you can sit where you like.”
If the second option is a sanction, make it clear you’d rather not use it. Something like “Lee, I need you to sit down, or I’ll have to move you, and I’d rather not do that.” Now the policy is something you use reluctantly, and it isn’t a personal battle between you and Lee.
Then give take-up time. Say it, turn away and help someone else. Standing over a pupil waiting for them to comply turns it into a public contest. Walk away and they can do the right thing without an audience.
And follow up. “Lee, I need a quick word at the end.” Everyone knows what that means. The calm, one-to-one conversation afterwards is where the real work happens: what went on, and how it affected others.
Does it work in every classroom?
Not always, and not straight away. These are good ideas, but you’ll need to adapt them to your pupils, your own manner and your school’s behaviour policy. Tactical ignoring works well for attention-seeking, for instance, but if nothing follows it, other pupils may decide the behaviour is fine. Waiting in silence for quiet works with some groups. Others will happily let you wait all day.
Our course presenter, Kevin Piper, has a phrase for this: don’t be a tourist. Don’t try a technique once and drop it because it flopped first time. A new approach often takes around six weeks to start having an effect, so if you believe in it, stick with it.
It also works best alongside good teaching. Clear instructions, routines pupils can predict, work pitched so they can get into it, and a room where you can move around and see everyone will head off a lot of the behaviour the ladder is there for. There’s more on that, and on school-wide approaches, on our behaviour topic page.
Is there a Bill Rogers behaviour management PDF?
We can’t share his books. Our free positive behaviour management workbook goes with our course, Implement Positive Behaviour Management in the Classroom, and has activities on these techniques: rewriting “why” questions as statements, trying out your tone of voice, and weighing up where each approach could go wrong. There’s also a behaviour activity pack you can use with colleagues.
If you want to work on your presence in the room (where you stand, how you scan, keeping your voice calm), Manage Behaviour: Principles and Presence covers that.
Where to go next
Implement Positive Behaviour Management in the Classroom is a short online course for teachers and support staff who want calmer lessons with less arguing. It covers communication and language, teaching that prevents poor behaviour, using rewards well and setting up your classroom, and the workbook helps you fit the ideas to your own classes. Kevin Piper leads it, and he once took on a GCSE group nobody else wanted to teach.