Pupils Do Not Participate

I am a trainee teacher. Since a few weeks I teach a class of 27 pupils (age 12 to 13 years) at a grammar school in the subject of history. The class does not show much motivation to study the topics I am teaching. The last time only three students collaborated during the lesson. The rest of the class was mainly busy talking to each other. There was a high noise level during the lesson. One student was resting with his head face-down on his arms on the table most of the time. Others played with the contents of their pencil cases. I had to ask many students individually to pull out their workbooks and to write down the notes on the blackboard.

I tried different things to change the situation. I asked them to be quiet in a calm manner, I tried to make my lesson interesting by showing a video clip on the history topic, I shouted at them to be quiet, I threatened them with detentions and I also reorganised the way they sit in the classroom. Nothing really helped. Due to the disturbances there are many interruptions and my lessons lack the structure I planned very carefully. Also, I get more and more confused during the lesson. This makes the lesson even more unstructured. At the moment, I am quite stressed when I teach in this class and I do not know where to start changing something. Do I have to change the way I communicate with the pupils? Do I have to plan my lessons in a different way with different methods? Do the pupils disturb due to lack of knowledge or are they not motivated to learn? etc.

• Tool 9 Talk to colleagues
• Tool 11 Distant peer coaching
• Tool 4 What can be observed in a lesson?
• Tool 6 Videorecordings support reflection and action planning
• Tool 3 Classroom leadership questionnaire
• Tool 3a Classroom leadership questionnaire - valuation sheet
• Tool 7 Korthagen's ALACT cycle of reflection

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