Sorry to gatecrash your post, but as I was about to post something very similar, I thought it made sense to put them together! I'm doing 3 days a week supply at a challenging (but actually the kids are characters and I don't dislike most of them) school. I'm teaching KS3 langs, and have a bottom set Yr8 who are just constantly disruptive, out of their seats, fighting, etc, etc. (The throwing has lessened somewhat, so maybe it's just a case of time!)

They won't shurrup and listen long enough to actually teach or help them, and are completely unable to follow written instructions. I do the whole praise the good, sanctions policy the bad, but it's a battle and a half.

My latest experiment is the noise-o-meter, with an arrow drawn to where is acceptable, volume-wise, which worked in the last school I taught in just got a "oh God, that's just GAAAAAY Miss,"

Hi

Couldn't help reading these posts. Have you considered getting them to set some classroom rules? I know you may think this sounds a bit lame, but hear me out. Ask them what they think is meant by respect and how they would like to be treated. Highlight that respect is about how to treat someone, even though you may disagree with their actions/decisions etc. Ask them how you should show respect to them.  They'll probably come up with something like not setting homework, to which you can reply that it's part of your job, so you can't do that but say you're open to their suggestions as to how you should set homework. Then ask them how they should show you respect, but not before agreeing their part first, it's important for them to see that you're treating them with respect (or at least their idea of respect). The idea is to get them to buy in to a set of classroom rules. You then need to keep a note of these and bring them to their attention if they start to slip back into their old behaviour.

Let me know how you get on, you have to be firm, keep positive and as j_pink says be consistent.

Good luck

I've worked in some pretty challenging schools with some really vocal children in the past. I had to radically adjust my expectations of them in order to approach the situation differently. For example, for as long as I kept giving myself the justification of "there's no point they don't listen anyway" I wasn't being creative about how to overcome the problem.

 Then in the school holidays I helped out on a kids camp where the children were extremely excited and noisy. The chap running it managed to get them in the palm of his hand. He did this over the course of a few days and there were a few key things that I've now developed from what I saw him doing.

1) He set ground rules and let them shout them out and talk all over each other until someone said "We should put up our hands when we want to talk." After that, each time they tried to speak with out putting up their hand he reminded them that the rules were theirs.

2) He was more persistent at reinforcing the rules than they were at breaking them. It was exhausting but it was eventually worth it.

3) He had a better attitude towards the children he was working with than I had with my class back at school. He really chatted to them and listened where I always felt I didn't have time to do that. Sometimes you have to make time for things like this to see a difference.

 I like the setting rules together idea and we refresh ours every term now to keep it in mind. I won't let myself blame my class for their habits again if I can be creative in finding a way to overcome them. Of course we still have bad days but Iknow I can do something to correct them now.

 I'm an NQT in a school with a similar problem. I'm still not on top of it, and sometimes feel like giving in, but it has started to work with one class, and I WILL succeed with the others!

I have a timer that I switch to on the board (http://www.online-stopwatch.com/). I tell them that they need to be quiet so I can speak/continue/give instruction - if that doesn't work, I start the timer. For every whole minute they make me wait for them, they owe me a quiet minute at the end of the lesson (after the bell/ at break or lunch). I even bring whole classes back at breaktimes to 'pay back' minutes of mine that they have wasted (luckily, I'm in a school where 95% of the students will come back).

I make a big dramatic show of starting and stopping the stopwatch (fold my arms, shake my head, sigh loudly, shrug) so with some groups I don't even need to start it (with one group, flicking from the powerpoint to the stopwatch is now usually enough)

In this situation I try to remove 1 or 2 ring leaders in the first lesson and then call home in the first week or 2.  In a good school this usually does the trick.  If you are in a bad school with no back up from SMT then it could take much longer for your class to get the message.  I have also done the "cup of tea" thing and just sat at my desk until they shut up.   As soon as a pupil speaks I write in their planner and sit down again for a few minutes.  Most classes soon get bored and shut up!

Good luck