Behaviour and Discipline in Schools

Memorandum submitted by Kent County Council

1. How to support and reinforce positive behaviour in schools

1.i Positive behaviour is built on understanding the needs of staff (adults working with children) and children and young people within the educational environment, and how to bring these together. This may range from consultation about an individual child with whom a school may be struggling, to working with a group of children and staff, through to helping a whole organisation think about the systemic issues.

1.ii It is essential that structures that support schools bring parents and schools together and help them gain perspective, understand and problem-solve, and develop confidence in exploring new and more effective ways of working with children. The key features that are fundamental to supporting and promoting positive behaviour are that:

· schools are welcoming, nurturing environments where children and young people feel safe;

· adults respect and value children’s views and opinions;

· adults implement an authoritative approach which has children’s wellbeing at its centre.

1.iii Approaches that reflect these values and ideas include SEAL, Leuven, Solihull, Nurture groups, Restorative Practices.

1.iv Behaviour management at a systemic level is part of an organic process that fundamentally depends on empathy and communication skills. All three are essential, however empathy and communication are fundamental to the success of the third.

2. Nature and level of challenging behaviour by pupils in schools, and the impact on schools and staff

2.i Data shows that schools identify large numbers of children as having behaviour problems, most often associating this with home or ‘within child’ factors rather than school factors. There is however an increasing awareness of children whose behaviour difficulties reflect underlying language and learning needs. Good schools seek to identify and address these at an appropriate level, drawing on external agencies as needed. Many schools have developed very effective systems for screening, monitoring and supporting children with a range of difficulties, including BESD.

2.ii Equally however, bad behaviour can be a product of poor leadership and poor provision, in terms of both the curriculum and the quality of teaching and learning. It is not coincidental that by far the majority of fixed term exclusions are for persistent disruptive behaviour in all phases of education. Problems that in one school would be absorbed and addressed effectively, in another school can escalate and lead to breakdown, and within any school one teacher may experience problems that another teacher does not.

2.iii It is unfortunate that the focus for schools in the National Challenge programme and the World Class Primary programme is entirely on threshold achievement. This leads schools to be less tolerant of pupils who, in their view, are less likely to contribute to successfully achieving those thresholds, either because of their effect on teaching and learning for others who might, or because they as individuals would not, or both.

3. Approaches taken by schools and LAs to address challenging behaviour, including fixed term and permanent exclusions

3.i How problems with behaviour and discipline are responded to at primary and at secondary schools varies with and reflects, the size and ethos of each institution. The advent of academies has resulted in a sense of increasing individualism. An example is where a school adopts a zero tolerance approach , thereby "getting rid" of problems through exclusion which simply shifts them to another institution. Equally, schools that simply escalate discipline issues up the hierarchy also find themselves in a position with high levels of exclusions – reducing these requires a mind set and approach on the part of school leadership that the responsibility for resolution and repair rests with the people involved. There are schools and facilities that need to provide much more structured, intensive support for some children who cannot manage within a mainstream setting at all, or who struggle at certain times in their school careers. The same parameters for success apply at all, its a question of ratio and emphasis.

3.ii Schools that are successful are those that have internal structures that support de-escalation and re-engagement, including the use of sanctuary and time out provision. The Inclusion Development Programme (IDP), produced by the National Strategies, contains a wealth of good practice guidance on addressing BESD. This valuable tool for training and preparation for good teaching by new and existing teachers remains under-used however.

3.iii There are particular examples of innovative approaches to transition, especially from primary to secondary phase. Many secondary schools now operate a ‘primary school’ teaching approach, often termed the Golden Curriculum, ranging from Yr 7 to the whole of KS3 (Yrs 7-9), which is designed to raise the confidence and self-esteem of pupils for whom learning is not an easy experience and for whom transition is difficult. As with any alternative provision approaches and learning goals need to be highly personalised, with exit pathways built in to the planning.

3.iv Some schools identify pupils for individual support and select and train older pupils in basic mentoring skills. Very successful ‘buddy’ systems can result as pupils feel well supported by their peers. This is often extended within whole school structures that build ‘mini-communities’, including non-teaching ‘support officers’ (see below – FLOs and PSAs).

3.v There is increasing evidence of Restorative Practices being developed in schools, having a positive impact on the level of recorded incidents of challenging behaviour. This is most effective when it is part of a whole school approach, in which both adults and pupils have an equal stake.

3.vi Schools that deal successfully with behaviour are those which are aware, through recording and analysis, of the whole environment, particularly unstructured times of the day. These include breaks, lunch, moving between sessions, start and finish times. Carefully planned and personalised activities to engage pupils, and calming measures for movement tend to be features that work.

4. Ways of engaging parents and carers in managing their children’s challenging behaviour

4.i There is much greater awareness of and acceptance of parent/carers’ need for understanding and supporting their children, but it needs to be much more "joined up". Schools, as universal providers for children, are well placed to be a conduit for support, and this is frequently provided through Family Liaison Officers (FLOs) and Parent Support Advisers (PSAs). Schools have pointed to the improvements in parental engagement and attendance enabling Headteacher s and teaching staff to focus on standards. The Education Welfare Officers view FLOs as their first point of contact on attendance issues and work in partnership  with FLOs and PSAs. This has resulted in improved attendance and a reduced caseload. FLOs and EWOs are seen as having a key role in the implementation of " Think Family " , CAF, SPA and " The Team Around the Child " . The withdrawal of some Family Support Services have meant that FLOs and EWOs are being involved in an increasing number of complex cases.

4.ii The recent review evaluation of the activities of FLOs and PSAs working in Kent has stimulated discussion about whether their role should take incorporate some of the role of a Social Worker Assistant to further su pport families, and the training implications should this move forward.

4.iii It must of course be recognised that there are often significant environmental factors that can be contributing to poor behaviour at school: lack of sleep; adolescence; screen time/violent games; gang culture; parent/carer views of the value of education or their own negative school experiences.

4.iv This is an opportune time for schools to be looking into the possibilities of either extending their social pedagogy, by rethinking the TA/LSA role to help pupils to socialise, interact and learn how to learn together. There are many good examples of this approach internationally.

5. How Special Educational Needs can best be recognised in schools’ policies on behaviour and discipline

5.i It should not be possible for a school to separate its policy development in relation to behaviour and discipline from its statutory duty (Disability Discrimination legislation) to make reasonable adjustments in relation to behaviour, where a school has identified a pupil as having BESD.

5.ii There is significant link between unmet speaking and listening/speech and language development delay, often identified early in a pupil’s school life but not adequately addressed. Once again IDP is a valuable training tool (Speech, Language and Communication modules), and developments of the Language Link primary and secondary phase screening tools and strategy advice will be very useful. Although this may be a generalisation it is likely that secondary school teachers have little understanding of the need to adjust their own language, which can create huge barriers for pupils with language and communication needs. This may be linked to a view that they teach ‘subjects’ not ‘children’.

6. The efficacy of alternative provision for pupils excluded from school because of their behaviour

6.i It is important to emphasise the need for a continuum of provision that is first and foremost designed to prevent exclusion because of behaviour. At the earliest stages of a child’s involvement in formal education their range of social skills may be very limited, depending on their pre-school experiences. Some children benefit from specific nurture group opportunities provided at school, or organised between partnerships of schools.

6.ii There are very good examples of the use of "sanctuary" provision within schools to de-escalate and re-engage, often so successful that they cease to be needed.

6.iii Where alternative provision is made either on or off-site (short stay schools) the need to plan timely re-integration is essential. The aim should be two-fold: to build the capacity of the referring school to reflectively make reasonable adjustments, particularly to the curriculum delivery and to teaching and learning, and build capacity so that the pupil is not returning to the same environment in which he has failed; to modify the behaviour of the child in a learning environment. Restorative approaches can be an effective tool to support the reintegration of pupils across both primary and secondary phases, by seeking to address and find resolutions acceptable to all parties to the underlying courses of behaviour rather than simply punish it. This approach allows all parties to move on in a positive way, feeling that the issue has been fully addressed.

6.iv Ideally there should be a continuum of alternative provision through to the most specialist of special school provision, with outreach, support and advice to mainstream schools being precise, well co-ordinated and transparent.

6.v Alternative provision should not be confused with alternative curriculum, although there are good examples of creative and flexible approaches to the breadth, delivery and location of the curriculum which are advantageous to disaffected pupils. It is possible to achieve (as Kent has shown) a very wide range of commissioned alternative curriculum options from a wide range of providers. These are long term arrangements however, usually for the whole of Key Stage 4, not designed to re-integrate pupils back into their original mainstream school. They are designed to re-engage and re-integrate pupils into full time education, employment and training pathways post-16. Alternative curriculum providers should not simply replicate a basic mainstream curriculum for the disengaged mainstream pupils whose behaviour challenges mainstream schools..

7. Links between attendance and behaviour in schools

7.i Poor attendance at school is often a useful indicator of potentially difficult and challenging behaviour. The strong emphasis in the last few years on attendance analysis and the identification of persistent absenteeism is valuable to schools and the LA. As described above there is a particular coherence in the approach that some schools take when reflecting on their provision, in order to make school a place that pupils want to come to every day, and once there, want to stay at, regardless of what their parents/carers’ own experiences have been.

7.ii Where there is less than rigorous registration of absence, and even the use of part-time attendance and other informal (and occasionally illegal) arrangements in which schools are complicit with parents over non-attendance, there should be robust investigation and challenge from the Local Authority.

8. The Government’s proposals regarding teachers’ powers to search pupils, removal of the requirement for written notice of detentions outside school hours, and the extent of teachers’ disciplinary powers, as described by the Department on 7 July

8.i Motivating disaffected pupils is usually more a matter of reward and praise than a process of sanction and punishment if it is to be effective. ‘Catch them being good’ is a very powerful approach, as the role of schools is to identify and recognise all young people’s talents.

September 2010