A Practical Guide to Positive Behaviour Interventions and Supports: Key Concepts and Classroom Strategies

Over the Easter break, I found myself reflecting on the many incredible conversations I’ve had—choc-full of knowledge for teachers (pun intended!). With so much great content, it’s easy for some gems to slip through the cracks or be forgotten. So, I thought it might be helpful to create a series of short articles that summarise the key takeaways—making it easier to revisit and apply the big ideas.

For the first edition of Top-Up Tuesday, I’m going to dive into something absolutely crucial for every teacher: understanding and supporting student behavior. It’s the foundation that everything else rests upon, and honestly, sometimes it feels like the hardest part of the job.

I recently had the immense pleasure of chatting with Dr. Brandi Simonsen, a leading expert from the University of Connecticut, who specialises in Positive Behaviour Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Dr. Simonsen shared some incredibly insightful perspectives, drawing from her journey from the field to academia and co-directing the National Center on PBIS. Her experiences, including working in a school that was “in crisis” due to high rates of aggression but found its way out through PBIS, really underscore the power of proactive approaches.

Let’s unpack some key takeaways that are immediately useful for you in your classroom.

The Deep Links: Behaviour, Attendance, and Academics

It’s easy to think of these three things as separate silos, but Dr. Simonsen highlighted how interconnected they are. When a student struggles academically, they might use behaviour to escape or avoid that difficulty. This disruptive behaviour can lead to them being removed from the learning environment, making it even harder to catch up and succeed academically. It creates a negative cycle.

What’s also clear is the link to attendance and engagement. If students don’t feel safe and supported at school, they’re less likely to attend. The good news? When we implement positive and proactive practices, we can help kids re-engage in learning, support their social-emotional-behavioural needs, and improve attendance. These elements can feed each other positively when the right supports are in place.

Why is Behavior Management So Hard? (It’s Not Just You!)

If you’ve ever felt like you weren’t adequately prepared to handle challenging behaviour, you’re not alone. Dr. Simonsen noted that, at least in the US context (and it sounds like it’s similar here in Australia!), pre-service teacher training hasn’t historically done a great job in equipping teachers with the skills to support student behaviour. Often, the focus was limited or skewed towards punishment rather than proactive strategies.

Classroom management is inherently complex. Students come with diverse needs, requiring both universal supports and differentiated approaches. It’s a skill that requires practice and good professional learning, which isn’t always consistently available. This lack of preparation is even cited as one of the reasons teachers leave the field. Understanding this context helps shift the perspective: it’s not necessarily a personal failing, but a systemic challenge that needs addressing.

The ABCs of Behavior: Your Practical Framework

This is a fundamental concept in understanding behaviour, and it’s incredibly practical for teachers. Think of them as building blocks that help us understand why behaviors happen

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• A is for Antecedent: Everything that happens before a behavior. These are the triggers, the context, the environmental factors, or even internal states that set the stage for a behaviour to occur.
• B is for Behaviour: The observable, measurable action or response a student makes. It’s what we see or hear.
• C is for Consequence: Everything that happens after a behavior. Consequences determine whether a behavior is more or less likely to happen again in the future.

Understanding Consequences: It’s About What Works for the Student

Here’s a crucial shift in thinking: the word “consequence” doesn’t just mean punishment. Consequences can be anything that follows a behavior, and the way they function is determined by how they affect the behavior in the future.

• If a behavior continues to happen, the consequence is likely reinforcing (it’s working for the student).
• If a behavior stops happening, the consequence is likely punishing (it’s not working for the student).

Dr. Simonsen gave a striking example: suspending a student who already misses a lot of school because of poor school attendance. If they continue to miss school, the suspension isn’t functioning as a punishment; it might even be a reinforcing break. This highlights the need to look beyond our intended outcome and see how the consequence is actually impacting the student’s future behaviour. Consequences in school could be grades, praise, peer attention (positive or negative), or being removed from class. Sending a misbehaving student out of class, for example, might unintentionally provide them with the very break they were seeking, thus reinforcing the behaviour.

Setting the Stage: The Power of Antecedents

While understanding consequences is vital, Dr. Simonsen stressed that if we haven’t set the student up for success on the antecedent side, we’ve “missed the boat”. Antecedents are your proactive superpower!

Key antecedent strategies that work for everyone:

• Create Positive, Predictable, and Safe Learning Spaces: The physical environment matters. Design it to be welcoming and accessible, thinking about how students will navigate it. Don’t just set it up and hope; engage students in designing it and teach them how to use the space.
• Explicitly Teach Routines: Students need to be taught how to navigate the classroom and its various activities.
• Establish and Teach Norms/Expectations: Choose a few (3-5 is good, avoid lists of 10!) positively stated words that reflect your local culture (e.g., Safety, Kindness, Respect, Responsibility). Critically, teaching is what makes these words come to life.
  • Explicit teaching involves modeling the behavior, providing practice opportunities (like quick thumbs up/down scenarios), and giving feedback. It doesn’t have to be a huge lesson; a 5-minute reminder before an activity can be highly effective.
  • Remember, even older students need explicit teaching because norms and expectations can differ between classrooms and teachers, even within the same school. Assuming they “should know it by now” can lead to misalignment and frustration.
• Provide Reminders: Once taught, cue students with reminders in their language as they navigate routines.

Reinforcement: The Non-Negotiable Strategy

So, when students are engaging in desired behaviors, how do we encourage more of it? Dr. Simonsen was clear: specific positive praise is the most meaningful, powerful, and FREE strategy.

• Specific vs. General Praise: While any praise is better than none, specific praise is more effective. Instead of “Good job,” say “Thank you for putting your rubbish in the bin, that shows responsibility”. This tells the student exactly what they did well and serves as a prompt for others who are listening.
• The Power of the Ratio: You might have heard numbers like 4:1 or 5:1 for the ratio of positive interactions to correctives. This ratio originated in research on successful relationships. While the overall classroom ratio is important, the more critical perspective is ensuring each and every child experiences a favourable ratio. Students who receive more corrections need an even higher ratio of positives to build their sense of success and belonging. This often requires intentional effort to “look for the good stuff,” as our natural tendency can be to spot what’s going wrong.

Responding to Errors: Think Like a Coach

When a student makes a behavioural error, how should we respond? Dr. Simonsen suggested thinking about behavioral errors like academic errors. If a student says 2+2=5, we don’t get emotional; we signal the error, provide the correct information, and offer a chance to practice.

We can apply this logic to behavior:

• Manage Your Reaction: Try to respond neutrally and calmly, avoiding emotional reactions that can escalate the situation.
• Signal the Error: Clearly state the specific behaviour that is not meeting expectations (e.g., “You are running in the hallway, and we walk in the hallway”). This helps the student connect their action to the expectation, especially if they are still learning or in a heightened emotional state.
• Cue the Desired Skill: Immediately remind them of the expected behaviour or a skill they can use instead (e.g., “Your hands are not safe right now. I need your hands to be safe,” followed by “If you need a break, remember you can ask”).
• Provide Practice and Feedback: As soon as they use the desired skill, give positive feedback. This quick redirection helps them get back on track with learning.

For those more challenging moments when a peer’s behaviour might be disruptive to others, explicitly teaching and reinforcing how other students can stay engaged in learning can prevent a “domino effect”.

Intensifying Support: Meeting Individual Needs (Tiers 2 & 3)

Even with excellent universal (Tier 1) practices, some students will need more support. Dr. Simonsen emphasised that Tier 1 should be robust and differentiated, serving as the necessary foundation for everyone, even if not sufficient for all.

For students needing more, you can intensify your Tier 1 practices. This isn’t necessarily introducing something brand new, but adjusting what you’re already doing. For example:

• Increase the frequency of specific praise for that student.
• Make the praise more specific to a skill they are explicitly working on (e.g., a social skill taught in a small group).
• Connect praise to a point system or token economy that earns them meaningful reinforcers. Check-in/check-out systems are a common way to do this school-wide or within a classroom.

Crucially, understanding the function of a student’s behaviour helps you choose effective strategies. Is the behavior happening because the student is trying to get something (attention, an activity, an item) or escape/avoid something (difficult tasks, social interaction)?.

• If it’s to get attention, proactively provide attention before the challenging behaviour occurs, respond quickly to bids for attention (even with eye contact or a quick signal), and load up on attention when they are using desired skills.
• If it’s to escape/avoid, teach them a way to access a break or support appropriately. A break card is a great example. Instead of waiting for them to escalate and perhaps rip up their paper to escape the task, they can use a card to signal they need a break. Initially, celebrate them using the card frequently because they are learning a new, more appropriate skill. Once they are fluent with the card, you can gradually shape their behaviour by requiring them to do a small part of the task before taking the break. The key is focusing on the skill you want them to learn right now. Teachers need to get their heads around the fact that some kids will take a break regardless, and it’s better for it to be planned and appropriate than unplanned and disruptive.

Making it Stick: Beyond the Honeymoon

Dr Brandi Simonsen on what teachers can do when the honeymoon period is over.
Listen to the full episode 👇https://t.co/kTbf3EQIw4 pic.twitter.com/e4tJ8NZTcb

— Brendan Lee (@learnwithmrlee) March 21, 2025

You’re almost midway through the year now – past that initial honeymoon phase. Dr. Simonsen’s advice? Treat behavioral skills like academic skills. You wouldn’t teach a maths concept once and expect students to know it forever; you reteach, review, and provide practice.

• Reteach and Review: This is a great time to revisit and reteach your classroom norms and routines.
• Maintain High Expectations: Keep your practice up. Continue using prompts, reminders, opportunities for active engagement, and specific praise. Students will take advantage if you let your guard down.
• Intensify Where Needed: By now, you know your students better. This is the perfect time to identify which students might benefit from intensified support, whether it’s increasing praise, implementing a point card, or considering the function of their persistent challenging behaviours.

The School-Wide Ecosystem: How Leaders Support Teachers

Effective behavior support isn’t just on the individual teacher; it requires a supportive school-wide system. School leaders play a critical role.

• Provide Training and Coaching: Just as students need explicit teaching and practice, teachers need professional learning and ongoing coaching in evidence-based behavioral practices. Coaching shouldn’t feel like a punishment for struggling, but a universal part of professional growth, like athletes using coaching and video analysis.
• Foster a Supportive Culture: Leaders should celebrate staff efforts and successes, provide specific positive feedback for effective practice, and support teachers when they make mistakes or need help. Building trust and a positive, proactive culture takes time (often 3-5 years). Starting small, celebrating successes (like leaving positive Post-it notes in classrooms!), and building momentum are key.
• Use Data: Data is essential for guiding this work. Beyond just looking at discipline referrals (which often focus only on the negative), schools need to look at fidelity data (Are we implementing the practices as intended?) before just looking at student outcomes. They also need data on the positive social-emotional-behavioural skills they want to see, perhaps using screeners that identify strengths or by tracking positive referrals. Using data for both celebrating strengths and problem-solving is crucial.
• Build a Team: This work isn’t top-down. A representative leadership team including teachers, support staff (bus drivers, cafeteria staff, office staff), families, and student voice should drive the process. This team builds local expertise and ensures everyone has a voice.

Wrapping Up

Stepping back and looking at behaviour through the lens of the ABCs, understanding function, proactively setting up the environment, explicitly teaching expectations, celebrating successes with specific praise, and treating errors as learning opportunities can profoundly shift your classroom culture. It’s complex work, but by being intentional, focusing on the skills students need, and working within a supportive school system, we can create environments where all students feel safe, supported, and ready to learn.

Keep up the incredible work you’re doing every single day! You’re making a difference.

Let me know in the comments – what’s one thing from this post you’re going to focus on this week?

You can listen to the full episode of my conversation with Brandi Simonsen on the Knowledge for Teachers Podcast 👇

*This article has been produced with the assistance of generative AI.