Advice for building strong student relationships

There is a wealth of evidence to support the fact that one of the key causes of stress in teachers is disruptive behaviour by students.

There is plenty of research into the best ways to curtail problem behaviours, from zero-tolerance and peer-group strategies to reward systems. There is, however, one thing that stands out among all of the research, and that is the importance of “relationships” – both meaningful relationships with teachers and positive relationships with peers.

Let’s look at the teacher-student relationship. Stoughton (2006) showed that teachers need to understand why students practise disruptive behaviour before assessing which management strategies to apply, and Lee & Powell (2006) suggest that teachers have to abandon their authoritative identity and maintain a strong relationship with their students.