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

In Running the Room: The Teacher's Guide to Behaviour, Tom Bennett rewrote the book on behaviour management, and outlined the psychology and dynamics underpinning student habits. In this companion, he goes into more detail about how to apply those principles to the classroom. Addressing a wide range of circumstances, he explores popular teacher dilemmas such as:

How to deal with students who are late?
What are the best ways to work with parents?
Managing cover lessons successfully
How to tame smartphones
The best way to design a seating plan
How to start the lesson for the first time
Dealing with low-level disruption
Getting the class quiet when you – and they – need it the most

And many more. Using practical examples and evidence-informed techniques, Tom demystifies the puzzles that complex behaviour often presents, and guides teachers new and old carefully to a better understanding of how to run the room they way everyone deserves.

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.