Behaviour for Learning at Campsmount
Leadership Team; December 2012 To be reviewed October 2013
There are high expectations of outstanding student behaviour at Campsmount and staff are essential in supporting this. Where these high expectations are not met, staff should aim to challenge students about their behaviour whilst being positive and supportive to ensure the behaviour is not repeated. Positives raised through the review There have been many positive points raised. These are: more attention paid to praising students, good to take time to understand students’ position, students allowed to give their side of the story, thinking before reacting, much calmer approach to work, more of a listener, much happier, less stressed, keep dignity/breeds respect, agreed targets to move forward, fewer confrontations, addressing other issues without assigning blame, drawing a line under issues/fresh start, and being fair, consistent and understanding. Below are the developed responses to the following transgressions using your professional judgement where appropriate, and are seen as guidelines to dealing with issues in classrooms: 1. Disrupting lessons after a number of positive approaches have been tried The student needs to be informed about how their behaviour/conduct/approach has been disruptive to the lesson (they will have gone through a number of attempts to turn this around so should be fairly aware). Students must then attend ‘catch-up’ time (if work has not been completed due to disruption) or ‘department service’ (where completed work is not an issue and where the student ‘gives a little back’ to the department in a period of time deemed appropriate by the teacher). 2. Homework not handed in A definite ‘catch up’ session is required. This is because either they ‘did not get it’, therefore leading to further support/education being needed, or they simply ‘didn’t do it’ which means they need time to complete the work. The likelihood is that this would probably be an after school as this is the most appropriate time for ‘catch up’. However, the teacher may decide that lunchtimes may also work, particularly where there are other circumstances (ie a Y7 girl doing an after school without anyone to pick her up on dark nights).
3. Referral to Additional Department Support (ADS) Any referral to ADS should follow the process as above (1.) but should also instigate a contact (call or meeting) with parents, either from HOD or the subject teacher (preferable). Students MUST be given work before they can be sent to ADS. The pink slips are now not compulsory to use unless you wish to.
4. Departmental Review Card (DRC) This should be used where a student’s disruption or lack of quality work is ongoing over a number of lessons. Parents must be contacted when students are placed on DRC (according to records, only 3 students have been on this so far this year). 5. Not having equipment This should be dealt with quickly and without issue (ie providing a pen). However, where this is an issue that occurs regularly, a contact with parents should take place and a sanction issued if appropriate. 6. Late arrival This should be dealt with quickly and without issue (ie meet, greet and seat). Reasons should be sought at a later point in the lesson and where this is inappropriate or a regular occurrence, time may need to be ‘paid back’ and/or parents contacted. 7. Calling ERF Any need to call for ERF is no doubt for a significant issue. It is the subject teacher’s or HOD’s responsibility to arrange sanction and contact with parents unless this has been superseded by ERF staff contact with parents and arranged sanction (ie ISR placement, exclusion, etc). Departments should be dealing with issues and incidents from their departmental areas (low-level disruption, minor indiscretions, referral to ADS, ERF, etc). Everything should be recorded on Progresso by the teacher involved. Dealing with serious corridor/duty/between lessons issues When outside a classroom, if you come across an issue/incident, approach with common sense and with thought to your hierarchy of response. The only exception to this would be where somebody’s safety is at risk. Where possible, staff coming across issues/incidents outside of a classroom should deal directly with the student with reference to the framework for dealing with behaviour issues (see attached). Where the issue is of safety (ie fight, assault, threats, etc), this should be referred to ERF. However, where the behaviour could be classed as ‘low-level’ for outside classroom (ie ‘messing around’), it is likely that this be dealt with by reminding students about acceptable behaviour around school. It will be the member of staff who is dealing with the issue to decide whether further time is needed (such as break/lunch time with that staff). All issues outside of the classroom should be recorded on Progresso for the attention of the HOY, stating clearly what happened and what has been done to sort the situation out. Please remember that HOYs monitor patterns of behaviour across their Year groups, identifying interventions and support that is appropriate. Where possible, they should not be dealing with one-off incidents. How to deal with students who disrupt or cause issues repeatedly? As we all know, there will be a small core of young people who do not always respond to interventions in a classroom or outside of it. There are a number of interventions
that departments need to try, irrespective of Academic Review Card (ARC) monitoring by HOY: Use the DRC to allow monitoring by student and staff; contact parents prior to placement on the DRC and on completion of it to discuss next steps. It may be appropriate to bring parents in for a meeting (discuss this with HOY to avoid replication). Students can work to agreed short term contracts within departments that highlight SMART targets to be assessed lesson by lesson. Whilst some students who persistently cause issues may go onto ARC, there is no reason that departments can’t establish SMART targets to be worked to in addition to ARC monitoring (all recorded evidence of support prior to next steps for a student are essential). Once certain students begin to be monitored pastorally (mainly by HOYs), it is clear that time is needed in order to work with the student, their parents, the HOY and possibly form tutor, Learning Mentor team, and maybe external agencies. It is essential that work in departments with the student continues but that where issues arise, however minor, they are recorded. This feedback is vital to assess the need for appropriate support or to assess progress made (or lack of it). Pastoral support and interventions HOYs will go through a number of levels of support to try to work with a student to make improvements. Whilst we now have better links with external behaviour support provision through the North Learning Centre (NLC) at Shakers, we need to ensure that we have been through a number of strategies before referral to NLC or to work based learning. Strategies that HOYs and/or SLT can use are: Contact with parents (phonecalls, letters, emails, meetings). Monitoring through an ARC or more detailed, longer term monitoring books. Referral to the Learning Mentor team. Pastoral Support Plans. Pre-Assessment CAF (often the gateway to external agency support). Bespoke behaviour contracts established with student and parents. Assessment by the Learning Support department. Assessment by external agency through the Learning Support department. CAF referral completed, usually leading to multi-agency co-ordinated response and support. Outreach support from the NLC. One to one support in a lesson. Short/long term placement in the ISR. Part time curriculum restrictions. Placement with NLC. Managed moves to another school. Referral to the PRU or work based learning providers.
Where students are causing issues on a regular basis, the consistent and persistent recording of issues and incidents is what will flag up the need for the pastoral interventions and/or support to be looked at. Information from the ‘Relationships for Learning’ (RfL) policy Below are the elements of the RfL policy that should be given consideration in future work and in structuring future policy: Rights and Responsibilities Levels of support (ADS has changed slightly, see earlier in this document) The use of Departmental Review Cards (DRC) and Academic Review Cards (ARC) The use of establishment phases (maybe in a slightly different format) Emergency Referral The use of restorative approaches in response to student conflict or bullying Appendix 1 – Dealing with low level disruption (development of one’s own hierarchy of response and understanding of needs) The use of praise and reward (although this needs to improve when Progresso is more stable, ie Vivo) Appendix 6 – Summary of Bill Rogers conference Appendix 7 – DfE guidance Appendix 8 – 10 Classroom Management components Appendix 9 – ‘Getting the simple things right’ Appendix 10 – ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ Positive working relationships with students will continue to take a high priority at Campsmount. Our outstanding care, guidance and support of young people starts in tutor time and/or in lessons. It continues on corridors between lessons and on duty. It is enhanced through extra-curricular clubs and revision sessions. The outstanding care, guidance and support of young people at Campsmount should be pervasive. With staff striving for high quality teaching and learning, and outstanding care, guidance and support across the school; students should have no choice but to work hard and achieve academically, socially, personally and morally.
We would like to continue to offer the opportunity for healthy debate through the discussion group that Ben Wheeler runs. This will be a forum for all staff and will have an open agenda, almost like a Q&A session. Actions may well come from this group for further discussion at Leadership Team or to inform future planning and implementation of policy. Please look out for the next discussion group shortly after the Christmas break.
FRAMEWORK FOR ALL RESPONSES TO BEHAVIOURAL ISSUES
When considering your hierarchy of response, think about the framework for all responses to behavioural issues:
1. Praise and support Positive reinforcement is an effective tool for maintaining discipline. 2. Preserve student dignity Turn behaviour into a valuable lesson, not score points through embarrassment. 3. Private correction If not private, then low profile. Humiliation in front of others can lead to short term/longer term issues. 4. Consistent and fair The same responses for all students. 5. Why? Take time to consider why students act a certain way (Cry for help? Struggling?). 6. Severity of the behaviour Don’t over react; try and match behaviour to the level of response. 7. Self-correction Offering choices to sort own behaviour without direct teacher involvement. 8. Direct teacher intervention For issues of safety or extreme disruption, and possibly for repeated disruption.