This paper reports on how teachers are responding to students' inappropriate behaviours in public primary schools in Bangladesh. Data in this study were collected after the adoption of a recent government policy that has abolished corporal punishment in primary schools. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted with 22 teachers from six public primary schools in one district in Bangladesh. Thematic analysis technique was used to analyse the data. The results revealed that the majority of teachers were in favour of using reactive approaches to responding to students' inappropriate behaviours. The findings also indicated that teachers were largely unaware of preventative or positive strategies to teach students who behave inappropriately in the classroom. This paper reports the implications of the findings for policy-makers, and university and school educators.