Your Rapport Comment

Share your Rapport takeaways below.
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Some past comments ... 

Isabella Fawcett
I have found that exact line is hard as I am young and short too LOL so I have a lot of students that can stand over me figuratively and physically. Out in our small town with our small central school it is hard to avoid students outside of school. You walk down the street they there, go to a shop they there, go to the bowlo on a Friday they are there :P
So as part of our community I think there is that unspoken rule of thats my student and thats my teacher I can't do this or I should do this but yeah do not wish to be at a party with my students, they can stay at school. I do think having good rapport is a must especially with those kids are some of those 'negative nelly teachers' whom are always on the kid for doing something wrong you need to help them out as humans.
Richard​
I know exactly what you are referring to, Isabella - my first 6 years was in a small town. I socialised and played sport with some kid's parents and siblings!

Lachlan Davies
I believe I have done a pretty good job at building rapport with my students this year (1st year). There are definitely some students mostly from year 8 that could use a fireside-chat and some adjustments. There has been one or two close calls with personal boundaries which stemmed from social media and I have certainly learnt to be more careful about the teacher student line. The conversation about crossing the line certainly sounds like the best way to deal with that. I find this problem tends to be more common with worse behaved students as teachers think that being friendly might help with their behaviour.
Richard​
It takes a while to find exactly where the line is!

Rob Sibley
(My biggest success this year)
When I started at my school this year it was week 5 of term 1. I was coming half way through the term and the behaviour in my math class was awful. After about two weeks I had almost everyone on my side except for one very difficult student. He did not respond to multiple different approaches including a fire side chat. I ended up having a fire side chat and mentioned having a meeting outside of class time to discuss some goals for both of us in class. after the meeting I noticed an immediate change in the students behaviour. its been about 10 weeks since that meeting and the student is a different version of themselves. Its still a work in progress as the behaviour has improved but the work ethic hasn't so I will continue to work on that.
Richard​
Wow, THAT is an amazing story. Well done Rob. How satisfying!

Your Rapport comment here ... 

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One more past comment ... 

Ed Carrington
I haven't had too many issues with students wanting to be my friend but I did have some instances last year, in my first year, where kids wanted to tell me something that was inappropriate - it was easy to tell that what they were about to say about another student was going to be both untrue and something that if true, would fall under the mandatory reporting umbrella - generally this also occurred in front of at least one of their friends. I cut them off really quickly and stated to them to think really carefully about what they were going to say because I was a teacher and was bound by mandatory reporting - on each occasions they took stock and sort of conveyed through their body language - 'ok - fair enough - he's not going to get caught out on this one and I've been warned why I would be clearly crossing the line and I am going to smile and pull back'. On the second issue discussed, being in the wrong and apologizing for it - I have had this experience. This is my only my second year but at the end of term 2 this year, I had reached a point were I was floundering with both the workload and the feeling and the reality of not having any rapport with quite a few students in a couple of classes. For me, it came to an apex when I had a year 10 class that got moved to a different classroom because one of my students had a banged up knee and the lift was out of order. The classroom had no textbooks so I had to go and get them with a couple of students from my classroom, then when I got back with those, as soon as I tried to start the lesson it was pointed out that most of the student's exercise books were upstairs in the tub and I had to send someone to get those before the students could attempt the first questions. The assistant principal had asked at the beginning of the lesson if I minded him observing me, so he was in the room at the back which was another break in routine for the students and the desks were all scattered around the edges of the room and I had great doubts as to whether some students could see the board. I stated that I didn't think some students could see and suggested that they move their desks away from the walls closer to the vacant centre and got no response. I was tired from lack of sleep due to having the tasks of writing a year 7 test for the form, marking half that form's and a different form's tasks, and writing a year 11 investigative task and in-class test all rolling together with normal class preparation. I found out later that the assistant wasn't there benignly observing as part of the on-going random observations but because a couple of students had been complaining about me to their parents. Anyway at around the 3/4 mark of the lesson, after the assistant principal had left, I got to the point where I felt that nobody in the class was doing any work at all, they were all out of seating plan due to the change in classroom and they were just ignoring my instructions to stop talking. The period was before recess and I ended up telling them that they had a class detention for 5 minutes which alienated those few students who had been possibly on my side. I then realised 5 minutes before the end of class that I couldn't give them a detention for that recess because I had a playground duty but waited until a minute before the bell to tell them. I thought I could feel the last of any respect evaporate as kids thought the themselves that I knew this all along and that I had just made an idle threat that I had no intention of carrying out. I knew I was responsible for the train wreck and started the next class by apologizing to them all, stating that I had done something, in giving a whole class detention, that I didn't believe, outlining my tiredness and frustration at the seats being spread out and my genuine belief that some people could not see the board because of the extreme angle they were at and emphasizing that, while I was happy that the recess duty had stopped me from carrying it out, I had been genuine in the detention and had only later realized that I had a duty. I felt that the students accepted the apology on its merits and it was the start of changing the dynamic. On the third point of having a misunderstanding with a student and not knowing about it until it blows up - I am in the middle of this now with a student in my year 8 maths class. I have a 'model' student who burst into tears in the middle of asking me a question about a first question which I had just answered on the board and she had gotten wrong- the only thing that I sort of got out of it was a sense that she felt I had taught her the concept wrong in my notes and it was a catastrophe that she had gotten it wrong but she refused to talk to me. I looked at the student next to her who I knew a bit better because I taught her last year and she just gave me a bemused 'I have no idea' shrug. I felt I had to leave it at that point for the moment because she was so upset and clearly didn't want to talk to me and I would just try to monitor her going forward. COVID arrived and school transferred to at home in the space of a day and the class were assigned a take home formative. I didn't set or mark the task which was pythagoras and areas of special quadrilaterals but she didn't do well and I got an email from her mother clearly fingering me as the culprit while querying why she had not gotten marks for working. After reviewing her paper, she did very well in the 'taught' theory but lost 'huge' marks on two high mark questions that she just did baffling things on - like using her ruler to measure in millimetres the sides of a diagram clearly labelled with metre dimensions 500m and 850m and deciding to convert her millimetre measurements into metres to then get an answer that defied common sense. (This was the working that her mother was querying). I have had a phone conversation with her mother where she has made it clear that the student does not think that I communicate well and doesn't feel that she can ask me for any help but I honestly had no idea of any of this before she burst into tears in class. This has become another never ending post but is a challenge that lies ahead when class returns on the 9th of November to try and find a way to communicate with her 'on a level' without her feeling like I am 'talking down to her'.
Richard​
Well Ed, you have definitely entered 'the fire' that is teaching! I relate to most of what you are saying there. Re turning the girl around ... you really do need a fireside chat and allow her to blow off steam. Do it in an open place but one where you can both feel relaxed. Kick off with a theme of "I think we got out of kilter a while back" and then onto "How can things be better" etc etc always asking for her input. Hope that helps ...