Running the Room: The Teacher’s Guide to Behaviour

Good behaviour is the beginning of great learning. All children deserve classrooms that are calm, safe spaces where everyone is treated with dignity. Creating that space is one of the most important things a teacher needs to be able to do. But all too often teachers begin their careers with the bare minimum of training – or worse, none. How students behave, socially and academically, dictates whether or not they will succeed or struggle in school. Every child comes to the classroom with different skills, habits, values and expectations of what to do. There’s no point just telling a child to behave; behaviour must be taught. Behaviour is a curriculum. This simple truth is the beginning of creating a classroom culture where everyone flourishes, pupils and staff.
Running the Room is the teacher’s guide to behaviour. Practical, evidence informed, and based on the expertise of great teachers from around the world, it addresses the things teachers really need to know to build the classrooms children need. Bursting with strategies, tips and solid advice, it brings together the best of what we know and saves teachers, new or old, from reinventing the wheels of the classroom. It’s the book teachers have been waiting for.

Tom Bennett is the founder of researchED, a grass-roots organisation that aims to raise research literacy in education and campaigns for better evidence awareness worldwide. It now holds events globally, attracting thousands of followers and generating discussion and change in schools throughout the world. In 2015, Tom became the UK government's school behaviour tsar, advising on behaviour policy as well as chairing the Mental Health in Schools panel. He has written five books about teacher training and in 2015 was longlisted as one of the world's top teachers in the Varkey Foundation's Global Teacher Prize. In the same year he was listed as one of The Huffington Post's top 10 global teacher bloggers. Tom is the director of Tom Bennett Training, which works exclusively with the most disadvantaged students and schools in England, helping them to turn around, and he is a teacher-fellow of Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. His online resources have been viewed more than 1,200,000 times. Tom was appointed OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for his significant contribution to education.