Glossary

Self-assessment

Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management

The Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management (TCM) programme is a group programme for teachers that teach children between 4-8 years old. It is a universal school based prevention programme which aims to strengthen a wide range teacher classroom management strategies.

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Usability Rating

4

Supports Rating

4

Evidence Rating

4+

Fit Rating

NYR

Capacity Rating

NYR

Need Rating

NYR

The Hexagon: An Exploration Tool

The Hexagon can be used as a planning tool to guide selection and evaluate potential programs and practice for use.

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Evidence

4+

Fit

NYR

Capacity

NYR

Supports

4

Usability

4

Need

NYR

Usability - Rating: 4

Core Components

The Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management programme is a school based prevention programme for teachers that teach children between 4-8 years old. This universal programme improves teachers’ classroom management for all the children in the classroom. Even in this context, teachers may choose students of focus (often more challenging students) and work on behaviour plans to support these children's behaviours in the whole classroom context. This programme also promotes children social competence, emotional regulation and academic skills; enhances teacher abilities in encouraging and supporting parents with school involvement; and reduces classroom conduct problems.

The programme is delivered by trained group leaders to teachers in 6 full day workshops spread out monthly or bimonthly. It is important there is sufficient time between workshops to afford teachers the time to complete reading and practice assignments, practice and apply their new skills, and work on behaviour plans. Group leaders are equipped with a comprehensive leader manual, 7 DVDs, a teachers’ book, posters, laminated calm down card, and stickers. Training is delivered using video modelling, group discussions, self-reflective learning, role play practices, individualized behaviour planning, and classroom assignments. The programme focuses on building positive relationships with students and parents; preventing behaviour problems; teacher attention, academic, social, emotion and persistence coaching; praise and incentives to motivate students for difficult behaviours; reducing inappropriate behaviour; and teaching students emotional, self-regulation, social & problem solving skills.

Incredible Years® group leaders are encouraged to visit teachers’ classrooms between workshops to observe how teachers implement skills learned in prior workshops, and to support the teachers’ individual goals and behaviour plans.

Fidelity

Incredible Years® provides a fidelity of implementation’ framework for sites. The steps required to effectively replicate the programme and achieve good outcomes include use of (1) standardised intervention materials; (2) 3-day group leader training by accredited mentor or trainer; (3)teacher training programme deliver by accredited group leaders and participant workshop evaluations; (3) completion of bimonthly or monthly workshop protocols and participant evaluations; (4) ongoing group leader supervision, consultation and support by IY coaches or mentors; (5) fidelity monitoring using evidence-based measures and final summative evaluations and (6) agency organisational supports.

Modifiable Components

The Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management programme is a universal prevention programme, but has been shown to be effective for children with behaviour problems when delivered as part of therapeutic intervention. This programme has been delivered to multiple cultural groups and has been translated into multiple languages.

Delivery of curriculum can be adjusted according to the developmental ages of the children in the classroom and teacher background and goals. Modification is achieved by varying the pacing of content covered according to background of teachers and selection of vignettes shown according to age and developmental status of children. Teacher educational backgrounds in day care or preschool settings can be different from primary school teachers and certainly the developmental level of language and cognitive abilities will differ and strategies and vignettes chosen will be adjusted accordingly.

Supports - Rating: 4

Incredible Years® Inc. is based in Seattle and offers a series of inter-locking evidence-based programmes targeting parents, teachers and children. Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management programme is one of the Incredible Years teacher training programmes.

Implementation Support

Preparation for the Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management programme for an entire a school or agency starts at least 6 months before the actual training, to ensure that training needs are addressed. Incredible Years® have available an agency readiness questionnaire that helps agencies determine their readiness for implementing the programme. Incredible Years® also have an implementation effectiveness questionnaire that helps agencies understand the organizational processes and implementation components required to deliver the programme. Incredible Years® mentors work with agencies to enhance agency understanding of the training, supervision and consultation needs of teachers and group leaders. Incredible Years® mentors also help agencies support teachers in adopting the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management programme, and provide advice to agencies regarding logistical details and administrative support needed to implement this programme.

Licence Requirements

There is no licensing requirement to deliver the Incredible Years® Programmes. However, a Brand License Agreement is needed for use of Incredible Years® materials on web sites.

Start-up Costs

Start-up costs include an upfront one-off purchase of the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management programme priced at $1,500. This programme includes a DVD set (7 discs), leader’s manual, incredible teachers book, laminated calm down poster, stickers, cards set and teacher pyramid magnet.

Teacher/ practitioner training is highly recommended, and group leader training costs $690 for the 3-day training in Seattle. If an agency wants to train between 15 – 25 practitioners, Incredible Years® can send a trainer to the host agency at $1,730 – $2100 per day, for three days. Other costs include certification/ accreditation processing fee costs $600; additional video review (if required) costs $105/hr; phone consultation costs $210/hr; and in-person consultation day at Incredible Years site costs $230.

Building Staff Competency

Qualifications Required

Educational backgrounds for group leaders include teaching, school counselling and psychology. Incredible Years parent group leader or child group leader accreditations are accepted. Background in child development, adult group leadership, cognitive social learning theory and student teaching experience are desired.

Training Requirements

Incredible Years® offers a 3 day programme to equip group leaders with the ability to deliver the Teacher Classroom Management programme to teachers. The training is provided by an accredited mentor or trainer of group leaders. On training completion, trained group leaders can deliver the 6 full-day workshops to groups of teachers. The 3 day group leader training is also required if participants would like to apply for accreditation. Incredible Years have a training progression process which enables continued development and accreditation of group leaders across multiple levels. For example, accredited group leaders are eligible for peer coach and then for mentor training and accreditation.

Group leader accreditation process requires the completion of the 3 day group leader training; completion of 2 group teacher training workshops (each workshop lasting the full 6 days, spread out in bimonthly or monthly workshops, with a minimum of 10 teachers per workshop); and obtaining satisfactory video review for conducted sessions. Details of training workshops conducted by group leader should be submitted to support accreditation application. With accreditation, participants are able to deliver the 3 day group leader teacher training. A training progression process enables continued development and accreditation of group leaders across multiple levels (from group leader to coach to mentor to trainer). Certification application is processed by Incredible Years certification/accreditation committee.

Supervision Requirements

Consultation and coaching of leaders delivering the TCM program is highly recommended by Incredible Years® Inc. although not a requirement. The process includes peer review and self-evaluation of videotapes utilising process checklists, review of videotape feedback by an Incredible Years® mentor, review of evaluations, consultations once or twice per year with an Incredible Years® trainer and monthly telephone consultations. The cost of consultations with Incredible Years® mentors or trainers is $210 per hour.

When group leaders become accredited / certified group leaders, it is highly recommended they continue to participate in fidelity checks which could be in form of video review of workshops they deliver, consultations with accredited mentor, or coaching sessions with accredited coach.

Evidence - Rating: 4+

Theory of Change

The Incredible Years® Teachers Classroom Management programme is guided by cognitive social learning and developmental theories. In particular, the coercion theory – the theory of development of antisocial behaviour in children. The coercion theory describes how teachers or parents inadvertently reinforce negative behaviours in children, resulting in a cycle of negative responses from teacher/ parent and child. This theory encourages paying more attention to positive than negative behaviours, and utilising problem solving and discipline to manage negative behaviour. As teachers promote positivity and create positive relationship with children, emotional self-regulation in children is strengthened, social skills are enhanced, and aggressive behaviours reduced. This is reflected in the Incredible Years® Teachers Classroom Management curriculum.

Preschool: 3 to 5 years - Rating: 4+

Research Design & Number of Studies

Six studies evaluating the effectiveness of Incredible Years® Teachers Classroom Management programme were identified. These studies included five group/cluster RCTs, and one quasi experimental study. Two of the six studies were conducted in collaboration with Incredible Years trainers (Baker-Henningham et al, 2012; Hutchings et al, 2013). Ages of children included in the six studies ranged from 3-9 years, however separate data is not available for the 3-5 year age.

Outcomes achieved

Compared to the control group, implementation of the Incredible Years® Teachers Classroom Management programme was associated with the following outcomes:

Child outcomes

Significant reductions in overall reported difficulties (Ford et al, 2018)
Significant reduction in target child’s negatives type behaviour towards teacher; significant reduction in classroom and target child’s off task behaviour ; and significant improvement in child compliance (Hutchings et al, 2013)
Significant improvements in student prosocial behaviour; significantly improved overall social competence; and significantly reduced emotional dysregulation (Reinke, et al, 2018)
Significant improvement in child behaviours including conduct problems and friendship skills; significant increase in social skills (Baker-Henningham et al, 2012)
Significant favourable changes in child-teacher relationship. This significant improvement was also seen in internalising and externalising subsample of children (Tveit et al, 2019)

Teacher outcomes

Significant reduction in teachers negative type behaviour to target children (Hutchings et al, 2013)
Significant increase in teachers’ self-reported use of positive classroom management strategies, and significant decrease in negative classroom management strategies (Hickey et al, 2017)

Key references

Baker-Henningham H, Scott S, Jones K, Walker S (2012). Reducing child conduct problems and promoting social skills in a middle-income country: cluster randomised controlled trial. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 201, 101–108

Ford T, Hayes R, Byford S, Edwards V, Fletcher M, Logan S, Norwich B, Pritchard W, Allen K, Allwood M, Ganguli P. (2018). The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management programme in primary school children: results of the STARS cluster randomised controlled trial. Psychological Medicine 49, 828–842

Hutchings, J., Martin-Forbes, P., Daley, D., & Williams, M. E. (2013). A randomized controlled trial of the impact of a teacher classroom management program on the classroom behavior of children with and without behavior problems. Journal of School Psychology, 51(5), 571–585

Hickey, G., McGilloway, S., Hyland, L., Leckey, Y., Kelly, P., Bywater, T., O’Neill, D. (2015). Exploring the effects of a universal classroom management training programme on teacher and child behaviour: A group randomised controlled trial and cost analysis. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 15 (2), 174-194

Reinke W.M, Herman K.C, Dong. N (2018). The Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Program: Outcomes from a Group Randomized Trial. Prevention Science19:1043–1054

Tveit H.H, Drugli M.B, Fossum S, Handegård B.H, Stenseng F. (2019). Does the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management programme improve child–teacher relationships in childcare centres? A 1‑year universal intervention in a Norwegian community sample. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. doi: 10.1007/s00787-019-01387-5. [Epub ahead of print]

Primary school: 6 to 12 years - Rating: 4+

Research Design & Number of Studies

The best available evidence for children aged 6-12 years comes from six studies, including five group/cluster RCTs, and one quasi experimental study. Two of the six studies were conducted in collaboration with IY trainers (Baker-Henningham et al, 2012; Hutchings et al, 2013). Ages of children included in the six studies ranged from 3-9 years, however separate data for children aged 6-9 years was not given. Evidence outcomes for age 6-12 years are the same as for 3-5 years evidence above.

Self-assessment

Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management

Compare

Usability Rating

4

Supports Rating

4

Evidence Rating

4+

Fit Rating

NYR

Capacity Rating

NYR

Need Rating

NYR

The Hexagon: An Exploration Tool

The Hexagon can be used as a planning tool to guide selection and evaluate potential programs and practice for use.

Evidence

4+

Fit

NYR

Capacity

NYR

Supports

4

Usability

4

Need

NYR

Preschool: 3 to 5 years - Rating: 4+

Primary school: 6 to 12 years - Rating: 4+

Need

Fit

Capacity

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