I was wondering whether there are any circumstances where you can allow calling out. I'm finding that I'm too soft on this and I'm not sure where to draw the line and how strict to be.

Starting at the upper end of school - I have 8 people in my A-level set, and they all talk whenever they want. Is this appropriate? 

Then I have 14 people in my year 11 - it's a really nice class, so when we're having a class discussion, I find myself slipping into A-level mode, and allowing them to call out, but after a while it becomes annoying because of course that means that some people get more of a chance than others. 

Lower down the school, I have started giving sanctions for repeated calling out, and I sometimes feel that this is a little harsh, for example, when a child raises his hand to ask for a pencil, and another one calls out 'I've got one'. Or when the Smartboard goes into 'save' mode, and a child calls out 'miss, the board'.

I teach languages and I think that's a subject that encourages calling out because we do things like choral repetition when practising the words, and it's then hard to go from that back into silence and 'hands up' before speaking mode. 

I don't want to be inconsistent, but I also don't want to be unreasonable. 

 Some of my pupils got wind of this particular news! I was wondering why my year 10 kept calling out this morning and then they told me it meant that they were particularly advanced in their work and they'd heard that on the radio whilst driving to school.

theedudicator:

Apparently calling out is a good thing now:

It depends a lot on WHAT they're shouting out!

 I teach at a boys' school and when a ball comes out they get incredibly excited and put their hands up just to get the ball, without actually wanting to answer the question. 

So, if you have a 'hands up' policy and you're standing just next to someone and eveyone is working quietly - do you still insist on 'hands up'? And what if you're halfway across the room, but still quite close?