Behaviour Management Books for Secondary Teachers

Secondary teachers rarely need another list of sanctions; they need clear routines, language and responses that hold up when a lesson, corridor or whole year group starts to unravel. This selection of behaviour management books for secondary teachers brings together practical classroom handbooks, research-informed guidance and more relational approaches, with useful distinctions between the needs of ECTs, experienced teachers, pastoral staff and behaviour leads. Several titles also examine SEND, trauma, exclusion and school culture, so readers can test ideas against their own context rather than chase a universal formula. For prices and ordering, click on the book cover.

As an Amazon Associate School Reading List earns from qualifying purchases.

Behaviour Management Books for Secondary Teachers – our recommendations

Be Brilliant at Behaviour Management by Caroline Bentley-Davies

Caroline Bentley-Davies’ concise Bloomsbury Education handbook is written for busy teachers in primary and secondary settings. It moves through rules, routines and rituals before turning to challenging behaviour, using case studies and coaching-style questions to prompt reflection on a particular class. The strength here is a compact, usable toolkit. Secondary teachers seeking deeper discussion of whole-school systems, SEND or statutory guidance will need to read it alongside their behaviour policy and current Department for Education advice.

Running the Room: The Teacher’s Guide to Behaviour by Tom Bennett

Tom Bennett treats behaviour as something that must be taught, practised and maintained, not a personality test. His classroom guide covers routines, expectations, relationships, motivation and the practical decisions that shape a lesson’s climate. It suits ECTs and teachers who want a coherent framework rather than a collection of isolated tips, and it remains directly relevant to secondary classrooms. The tone is confident and sometimes deliberately uncompromising, so readers may want to compare its emphasis on teacher authority with relational and inclusive approaches elsewhere in this list.

The Running the Room Companion: Issues in classroom management and strategies to deal with them by Tom Bennett

The companion is more scenario-led than Bennett’s main guide. It takes recurring secondary-school dilemmas such as lateness, cover lessons, smartphones, seating plans, parents, lesson starts and low-level disruption, then works through possible responses. That makes it useful beside a mentor conversation or departmental coaching session, especially when a teacher knows the principle but is unsure how it looks in a particular moment. It is not a replacement for a whole-school behaviour policy, and its value comes from applying the examples thoughtfully rather than copying scripts unchanged.

When the Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic shifts in school behaviour by Paul Dix

Paul Dix’s first book centres on the behaviour of adults and the culture created by their routines, language and responses. It is written for teachers and leaders who are reviewing expectations, recognition, consequences and relationships across a school. The relational emphasis gives it a different feel from technique-first classroom manuals, while its practical examples keep the discussion close to school life. It is especially useful for departments trying to align practice, although staff should read its recommendations alongside their own safeguarding, inclusion and behaviour policies.

After The Adults Change: Achievable behaviour nirvana by Paul Dix

This follow-up moves from changing adult behaviour to sustaining a wider culture of calm, purposeful and respectful practice. Dix discusses relational work, coaching, restorative approaches, exclusions, routines and the leadership choices that make a behaviour change last. It will suit behaviour leads, pastoral teams and senior leaders more than someone seeking a quick first read on classroom management. The book is closely connected to the author’s own framework, so it works best as a source of prompts for professional discussion, not as a validated programme or a substitute for local evaluation.

The Behaviour Manual: An Educator’s Guidebook by Samuel Strickland

Samuel Strickland arranges more than 100 strategies, approaches and teaching methods across school-wide, middle-leadership and classroom concerns. The short entries make it easy to dip into during planning, mentoring or policy discussions, and the range gives readers a broad menu rather than a single behaviour model. It suits an ECT, middle leader or senior colleague, but its breadth means it does not explore every approach in depth. Staff still need to agree which ideas fit their school’s policy and pupils’ needs.

They Don’t Behave for Me: 50 classroom behaviour scenarios to support teachers by Samuel Strickland

This book is built around 50 situations rather than a single theory of behaviour. Strickland covers familiar classroom incidents, serious events, bullying, fights and the absence of a coherent school strategy, then separates the immediate response from the next steps. That structure makes it a practical discussion tool for mentors, ECTs and secondary behaviour leads. It acknowledges that some incidents need a wider response than the class teacher can supply. Readers should treat the suggested actions as professional prompts, not fixed instructions for every pupil or context.

100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers: Managing Behaviour by Johnnie Young

Johnnie Young’s short Bloomsbury guide is a bank of 100 manageable ideas for secondary teachers. The entries address classroom organisation, expectations, relationships, responses to disruption and ways of making routines more consistent. It is a useful lower-commitment purchase for an ECT or a department assembling a starter shelf, and its explicitly secondary focus is welcome. The trade-off is depth: the format encourages quick experimentation and reflection, but does not explore the evidence, implementation conditions or whole-school consequences behind every suggestion in detail.

Secondary Behaviour Management: The Essentials, edited by Lizana Oberholzer

Edited by Lizana Oberholzer, this Routledge Teacher Training Hub title keeps the secondary phase in view throughout. Contributors discuss expectations, teacher standards, language, routines, positive feedback and the theory and research behind behaviour management. It sits between a practical handbook and an introductory professional text, making it suitable for trainees, early-career teachers and mentors who want concepts to sit behind day-to-day choices. Its edited structure means the emphasis varies between chapters, so it is better read selectively than treated as one uniform method.

Behaviour Management: An Essential Guide for Student and Newly Qualified Teachers, edited by Eleanor Overland, Joe Barber and Mark Sackville-Ford

This Routledge guide is written specifically for student and newly qualified teachers, but its coverage is wider than basic classroom control. The editors bring together chapters on routines, planning and subject knowledge, relationships, mental health, technology, SEND and reflective practice, with tasks and case material for professional learning. It is particularly useful for an ECT or mentor building a reading sequence around the Teachers’ Standards. Experienced staff may find the introductory framing familiar, but the inclusion and wellbeing chapters broaden the conversation beyond sanctions and compliance.

Better Behaviour: A Guide for Teachers by Jarlath O’Brien

Jarlath O’Brien’s second edition combines psychological research with practical discussion of relationships, bullying, parents, support staff and SEND. It is aimed at teachers and those training to teach, and is useful when behaviour is being considered as part of a pupil’s wider experience rather than as an isolated classroom event. The approach is humane and deliberately challenging, but it can be read too simply as placing every difficulty on the teacher. Use it to widen professional reflection, while retaining a clear view of pupil need, school systems and shared responsibility.

Leading Better Behaviour: A Guide for School Leaders by Jarlath O’Brien

The companion volume shifts the focus from the individual classroom to the work of school leaders. O’Brien examines how leaders shape expectations, support colleagues, respond to behaviour concerns and build a consistent culture across a school. It will be most relevant to heads of department, pastoral and behaviour leads, deputies and headteachers who are reviewing systems rather than looking for a script for the next lesson. The book does not remove the need for clear policy, staff development and reliable follow-through, all of which determine how leadership ideas reach classrooms.

A School Without Sanctions: A new approach to behaviour management by Steven Baker and Mick Simpson

Steven Baker and Mick Simpson describe a relational and inclusive approach developed in specialist educational settings, with discussion of belonging, trauma, motivation, engagement and exclusion. The book is useful for secondary schools considering how internal alternative provision, inclusion bases or SEMH expertise might inform mainstream practice. Its argument is intentionally bold: a sanction-free model will not transfer automatically between schools, and the title should not be read as permission to remove boundaries or ignore safety. Read it as a challenge to think carefully about the purpose and proportionality of consequences.

The Kindness Principle: Making relational behaviour management work in schools by Dave Whitaker

Dave Whitaker places relationships, values and acceptance at the centre of behaviour management, while still discussing high expectations, structures, routines, rewards and sanctions. Restorative approaches and unconditional positive regard sit alongside reflections on resilience and the experience of challenging schools. This makes it a useful counterweight to manuals built mainly around compliance, especially for pastoral teams and staff thinking about school culture. It is a values-led professional book rather than a step-by-step intervention, so readers will need to translate its principles into agreed routines and responses for their own secondary setting.

Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide to Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management and Colleague Support by Bill Rogers

Bill Rogers’ fourth edition is a substantial practical guide covering effective teaching, classroom management and support for colleagues. It works through real classroom dilemmas, rapport, emotional literacy, whole-class strategies and the professional conversations that sit around difficult behaviour. Secondary teachers may value its attention to the interaction between teaching and conduct, while mentors can use it to frame observation and feedback. The book is broader than the UK’s current policy language, so its suggestions should be interpreted within the school’s behaviour policy and safeguarding arrangements.

Teaching without Disruption in the Secondary School: A Practical Approach to Managing Pupil Behaviour by Roland Chaplain

Roland Chaplain’s updated secondary-specific guide concentrates on the practical conditions that reduce disruption: planning, routines, teacher responses, relationships and the organisation of learning. It is a useful choice for teachers who want a book written around the secondary timetable rather than a general classroom-management text. The second edition was updated in relation to legislation and official guidance, but it remains a professional handbook, not a legal manual. Check current DfE or national guidance whenever the issue concerns sanctions, restraint, suspension or permanent exclusion.

Creating a Trauma-informed Classroom by Sarah Lathan

Sarah Lathan introduces trauma-informed teaching through relationships, classroom environment, learning design, collaboration and emotional regulation. The book is written for primary and secondary teachers, with concise summaries of literature, research and policy, pupil voice and case studies from Scotland. Its relevance to behaviour lies in helping staff notice how stress and adverse experiences may affect participation and regulation without reducing a pupil to a diagnosis. It should complement, rather than replace, safeguarding, SEND and mental-health expertise; trauma-informed language is a lens for practice, not a licence to make clinical assumptions.

Implementing Restorative Practices in Schools: A Practical Guide to Transforming School Communities by Margaret Thorsborne and Peta Blood

Margaret Thorsborne and Peta Blood focus on the difficult middle ground between agreeing with restorative practice and embedding it across a school. The book covers the potential of restorative work, managing change, staff and community involvement, implementation barriers and an eight-step route towards a restorative culture, with templates and practical tools. It is especially relevant to behaviour leads and senior teams planning sustained change. It is not a quick classroom technique: its central message is that relationships, training, leadership and implementation need attention together.

“Miss, I don’t give a sh*t”: Engaging with challenging behaviour in schools by Adele Bates

Adele Bates addresses challenging behaviour in schools through the situations that can leave teachers unsure how to respond, particularly when disengagement, conflict or wider disadvantage sit behind what happens in class. The book is a direct fit for secondary teachers and behaviour or inclusion leads, and its title reflects the language of the situations it examines. It is best used to prompt curiosity, boundaries and coordinated support, not to excuse harmful conduct. Pair it with whole-school policy, safeguarding procedures and clear routes for involving pastoral or specialist colleagues.

The New Teacher’s Survival Guide to Behaviour by Sue Roffey

Sue Roffey’s second edition is aimed at new teachers who need a practical introduction to behaviour without pretending that every class problem has one cause. It considers relationships, classroom organisation, expectations and responses to challenging conduct, with the everyday pressures of beginning teaching in view. The book is older than several titles in this list, which is worth noting when policy or terminology has moved on. Its continuing use is as a starting point for ECT reading and mentor discussion, followed by current UK guidance and school-specific procedures.