Guide to Encouraging Positive Behaviour and Learning at School

Introduction

We believe that, as key members of our school community, parents and carers should have a clear understanding of how our school encourages positive behaviour through the use of our Behaviour Policy. This policy will be available on our school website but this leaflet is designed to give parents an overview of what our system looks like in practice and what the roles and responsibilities of the members of our school community are to ensure it works.

The Underlying Ethos

Respect is one of the key values of our school and children are encouraged to think about their rights and responsibilities as part of our community.

Rights	Responsibilities
All children have the right to learn.	To try their best at all times to allow others to learn and not to disrupt teaching.
Teachers have a right to teach without their lessons being disrupted.	Teachers have a right to teach without their lessons being disrupted.
All have a right to be listened to with respect.	All have a responsibility to listen to others with respect.
All members of the school community have a right to feel safe and secure.	To behave in a way that allows everyone to feel safe and secure.
All have the right to work in a positive learning environment.	To show courtesy and consideration towards each other.
Children have a right to be guided and supported with their behaviour.	To be responsible for their own behaviour and use the support they are given to help them follow the school rules.

We encourage children to use our school values; respect, caring, perseverance, creativity and independence to promote and encourage good behaviour and all adults in school can reward the demonstration of these values by nominating a child to go into our Silver Book of Values.

Our Behaviour System

The children and teachers have been involved in looking at behaviour in our school and sorting it into Green, Amber and Red behaviours (our behaviour traffic lights). Green behaviours are those that allow the children to learn and play without disruption, amber behaviours are those that may require a small intervention, such as time in the “thinking space” to help a child back on track and red behaviours are those that have disrupted learning or play to a level that is not acceptable. These traffic lighted behaviours are displayed across school.

Each classroom has a rainbow board and whilst a child’s behaviour is green they will move up the 7 colours of the rainbow, aiming to get to the pot of gold by the end of the day. All children start each day at the lowest level of the rainbow and move up. Each day is started afresh and children CAN NOT move down the rainbow. Any adult in school can move a child up the rainbow and the moves up the rainbow may not just be in increments of one step, fantastic perseverance at a task may result in a double jump and, on very rare occasions a child may do something so amazing that they jump straight to the pot of gold!

When the child reaches the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow they get a stamp/sticker on their personal bookmark. Sixty stamps/stickers allows them to exchange their bookmark for one of our small school mascots. There will be 9 mascots to collect so children could potentially get a mascot each term.

If a child is demonstrating amber behaviour, ie low-level disruption or a one-off minor incident then they will be given a warning to improve their behaviour before being invited to go to the “thinking space”.

The “Thinking Space” is not a punishment. It is designed as a neutral space, in the classroom, where a child is invited to go or may choose to go, to think about what they need to do next to get back to green behaviour. An adult will problem solve with them and then they will be invited back to resume their learning. Adults will encourage the making of good choices and help the child to identify what may have caused the behaviour so it can be sorted out. When the “thinking space” was trialled in classrooms across the school we found that most children were able to make good choices at this point and resume their learning where they left it.

If poor behaviour continues this will then be treated as red behaviour.

For red behaviour, there are clear sanctions linked to the levels of severity of the behaviour. These range from; being sent to another classroom for 10 minutes to write an apology and complete a work pack (aimed at giving the child the time to calm down), missed learning time is then made up in playtime, an internal exclusion where the child will work in an office space under the supervision of an adult for the rest of the morning/afternoon to stop further disruption to other children and finally a fixed term exclusion where the child is excluded from school for a fixed period of time.

Whenever a red behaviour takes place parents will be informed of both the behaviour and the sanction via a red card that will be given to them at the end of the day. If a parent does not pick up then they will be contacted by the class teacher via a phone call. If there is a regular person who picks up for you, such as a childminder, and you are happy for them to receive this information on your behalf then you can let the school know and we can communicate via the nominated person.

If a child receives three red behaviour cards in one half term period the child’s parents/carers will be called in for a meeting with the Headteacher/Deputy Headteacher, class teacher and their child to agree to an action plan to support the child in improving his/her behaviour.

Children with Specific Needs

All children in school will follow our traffic light and rainbow systems. However, we recognise that there are some children that, for many different reasons, need additional support to manage their behaviour. Very often school works alongside other agencies such as Primary Behaviour Support to ensure that systems and strategies are in place to help these children. These children will often have their own behaviour plans and reward systems that run alongside the whole school system and link directly into their own targets for improving their behaviour. The obvious benefit of this is the opportunity for all children to be able to work without disruption across the school but having this layered system also ensures all children in our school feel success at their own level, therefore promoting inclusion and achievement for all.