Some time in a school environment - behaviour techniques (post 3)

After having spent some time in a school now, I have noticed several techniques that work in behaviour management and keeping learner attention. Of course, I've also observed techniques that don't seem to work in certain situations. These will be addressed in this post.

Successful techniques:

• Counting down from *number* - This technique definitely appears to work with the younger students (years 7 through 9) when used well. The teacher counts down from a specified number and the students are expected to be quiet and listening. If the students aren't quiet the teacher can wait or, most likely use a warning system. It does work quite well.
• Being loud - This doesn't sound like I mean, it's just the easiest way of quickly putting. If you have the presence this can work brillianty. If the students are being quite loud, just raising your hand expecting silence is unlikely to work and counting down is slightly impractical. This tends to work with older students (years 10 and 11) where the more "tame" techniques are beginning to not work. If you are quite loud and are confident enough/have the presence to do this, it can work. Downside is if the class is quite unrulely, being loud has a high likelyhood of not working...

Unsuccessful techniques:

• Raising hand - It can work, but in the cases that I've observed personally it doesn't seem to work. I'm unsure as to whether this is due to the teacher not having the presence to pull it off or what, but the fact of the matter is, the multiple times I've seen it, it's not gained quiet quickly.

These are the main techniques I've observed thus far while being at school and they're not the be all and end all. I'll likely find what techniques work for me when I start properly teaching some classes and hopefully my initial worry about height will be addressed.