Behaviour and Discipline in Schools

Memorandum s ubmitted by Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education

1. Current UK law says that children said to have special educational needs should be educated in mainstream schools, so long as this does not conflict with parental wishes or effect the efficient education of other children (section 316 of the Education Act 1996, as amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001). It is therefore up to schools to ensure that all children’s needs are met. This also includes those children and young people said to have emotional or behavioural difficulties.

2. School are inherently failing to uphold the principle of the best interest of the child (as stipulated in the Children Act, 1989 and The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, 1989) when they temporarily or permanently exclude students on the grounds of behaviour or special educational needs.

3. When the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA 2001) was introduced, the Department for Education and Skills published guidance for schools on the new framework for inclusion of children with special educational needs into mainstream schools. The guidance confirmed that the general duty is to educate all children in mainstream schools and clearly explained: "The starting point is always that children who have statements will receive mainstream education" (DfES, 2001).

4. Equally, following the proposals for the reform of children’s services in Every Child Matters, the DfES published a key document setting out the government’s vision for offering children said to have special educational needs opportunities to succeed: Removing Barriers to Achievement: the Government’s Strategy for SEN (DfES, 2004). A commitment to inclusive education for all children and young people in mainstream schools was clearly articulated: "All teachers should expect to teach children with special educational needs (SEN) and all schools should play their part in educating children from their local community, whatever their background or ability."

5. Legal enforcement of segregation on the grounds of disability (including special educational needs), learning difficulty or emotional need is against international human rights agreements, including the UNESCO Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action (1994), the UN Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).

6. The importance of mainstream, permanent provision for all is not yet widely understood. Temporary or permanently excluding students is deeply problematic. Educational provision needs to be re-organised and its delivery changed. Children and young people who spend their school years separated from their brothers, sisters, friends and potential friends from their local community, often end up living their adult life at the margins of society. If children and young people are all to live in a society together, they all need to go to school together. There is, therefore, a strong argument for developing provision for everyone in ordinary local schools.

7. Schools may support and reinforce positive behaviour by valuing all members of their community equally irrespective of appearance, perceived ability, nationality or other differentiating features. This includes staff, students, parents/carers, governors and the members of the wider local community. By treating every person in the school community as simultaneously a learner and a teacher the skills and experiences of all students can be drawn upon. This in turn impacts on young people’s motivation and ability to learn.

8. Schools should ensure that their provision is inclusive. Inclusion involves widening participation for all students and reducing exclusion.

9. There is nothing that happens in special schools or Pupil Referral Units that cannot, and should not, take place in mainstream schools.

10. Excluding children and young people from mainstream provision on the basis of their behaviour can have disastrous effects in both the short and longer term. Richard Rieser of Disability Equality in Education explains: "Many young people leave with no qualifications, a label which devalues them, a circle of friends who feel as hopeless as each other, a loss of confidence and self-esteem and often a rejection of society’s values as they feel they have been rejected from society." (Speaking at the CSIE Day Conferences ‘An inclusive approach to difficult behaviour’, 25 November 1998 and 1 March 1999).

11. Segregation is morally problematic. One head teacher outlines this view cogently: "I was sitting there getting inspected, and that was really the first time I started to have my beliefs challenged. It was in a really rough area, disused flats all the way around the school and very disruptive pupils, and on the second day I excluded a child for violent behaviour, because that’s what an advisor does, so I sent him out for five days. And I remember distinctly – it was one of those moments when your life begins to change – I’d sent this boy out and I was standing at the window and I saw him... and he was riding his bike between a white van and one of these flats and he was running the heroin wraps for local dealers. And it just struck me. Because I know this van belonged to a dealer, and it was one of those moments when I felt I can’t do that, I can’t possibly morally do that. I’ve excluded him to a world where he can’t possibly survive. So I took him back in and I created systems, I paid for full time teaching assistant support for him. And I’d done the same with a girl the same year. She had bizarre behaviour. But when I excluded her I’d excluded her to a serial abuser who lived in the same house. So I stopped excluding after that." (James Kilsner, November 2001, in interview for ongoing CSIE enquiry, Working with the Index for Inclusion).

12. Disciplinary exclusion may be prevented if students are adequately supported. Changes may need to be made to teaching and learning activities.

13. Schools should minimise all forms of disciplinary exclusions including temporary suspensions and permanent expulsions.

14. Schools should have understandable, constructive plans for re-introducing students who have been temporarily excluded.

15. Clear records must be kept of all exclusions. These should be available to Governors who should be kept informed about what is happening.

16. Schools might like to engage with the Index for Inclusion : developing learning and participation in schools (Booth & Ainscow, 2002) (see, http://www.csie.org.uk/publications/inclusion-index-explained.shtml) to help them identify gaps in their provision through a self-review of the school’s cultures, policies and practices. The Index draws upon what schools are already doing but helps makes individual school cultures more inclusive through building a sense of community, establishing inclusive values, developing schools that are fit for all learners, supporting and valuing diversity, orchestrating learning and mobilising resources. Although not specifically designed to have a focus on the inclusion of children and young people said to have special educational needs or emotional or behavioural difficulties, the indicators and questions listed in the Index can be of considerable help to schools wanting to develop more inclusive provision for all.

17. Rather than speaking of special educational needs and singling out individual children and young people it is more conducive to think about what barriers exist to all young people’s learning. In this way schools may ensure that provision is suitable for all learners.

18. Schools should not remove learners on the basis that their behaviour is disruptive due to a fear that they are likely to achieve little academically. Educational policy should not simply be collapsed into economic policy, nor should issues of ‘social inclusion’ be simply conflated with economic efficiency or productivity.

19. It is important to remember that promoting disability equality is a whole school approach and not a matter for a particular class, teacher or teaching assistant. Inclusive provision is more likely to be successful if fully supported and led by the senior leadership team. In this way it is most likely to be embraced by the whole school.

20. Schools should engage with programmes of peer support (such as Circle of Friends, see http://www.inclusive-solutions.com/circlesoffriends.asp), including peer mediation, use other children and young people as mentors, and engage in initiatives such as the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) in order to teach all children and young people emotional intelligence and life-skills.

21. Students should be encouraged to be responsible for their own behaviour and encouraged to help resolve conflicts and disputes amongst their peers.

22. All members of the school community including staff, students, parents/carers and governors should share a view of what constitutes bullying. All members of a school community should be familiar with each of the forms of bullying specifically covered in anti-bullying guidance. Policies on unacceptable behaviour and their consequences need to be known by everyone.

23. The aim of increasing the learning and participation of students should be seen as the primary aim of all pastoral and behavioural support staff. Other staff members need to recognise and value its importance.

24. Strategies deployed to help with the behaviour of individual or groups of students should always be linked to improvements in teaching for all students.

25. Behaviour support should address barriers to learning and participation in school policies, cultures and practices.

26. Lesson planning should reflect on and attempt to minimise barriers to learning and participation for all students.

27. Teachers should examine ways to reduce the need for individual support for students. Teaching assistants should not be used to effectively teach individual students.

28. All teachers and teaching assistants should be offered chances to learn how to reduce the alienation and disruption of students. An attitude of mutual learning should be fostered.

29. The school should avoid activities that may lower the self-esteem of students in recognition that there is a link between low self-worth, alienation, disruption and exclusion.

30. Schools must ensure that behavioural and pastoral support policies address the well-being of students who are discreetly distressed.

31. The school must avoid creating disaffection amongst certain groups of students, such as the bottom tier of streamed classes.

32. The school should address feelings of depreciation as, and when, they occur.

33. The knowledge of parents/carers should be used to further the learning of all members of the school community and may also be used to help reducing alienation and disruption.

34. The school should address the origins of alienation or problematic behaviour amongst certain groups of students and link this to wider society – for example the relationship between popular culture and certain portrayals of masculinity and femininity might be linked to ideas of violence and eating disorders.

35. Problems should be dealt with as they arise. The way in which problems are dealt with need to be tailored to the individual circumstances.

36. Schools need to ensure that response to ‘bad’ behaviour are guided by principles of education and rehabilitation.

37. Schools should ensure that details of student’s past that may include ‘bad’ behaviour remain confidential upon starting at their new school. Teachers should treat such students in the same equitable way that they would all others, irrespective of what the student has done.

38. Barriers to attendance should be explored within the cultures, policies and practices of the school as well as in children and young people’s attitudes and homes.

39. Unauthorised leave of absence is not a reason for disciplinary exclusion.

40. An equitable response needs to be pursued for all unauthorised absences irrespective of the gender or background of a student.

41. Schools should recognise the relationship between unauthorised leave of absence, bullying and the lack of supportive friendships.

42. Schools should encourage and support the return to school and contribution of student’s who have been away for a long time, whatever the reason.

43. Appropriate systems for reporting absence need to be embedded. This includes opportunities for staff to discover why students may truant and is sufficiently detailed so that absences from specific lessons may be tracked. Where this occurs staff should ask students about their relationship with the relevant teacher.

44. Schools should have a co-ordinated strategy for students who are being seen by other agencies such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health or Social Services.

45. Reasonable adjustments need to be made for certain students in regards to Behaviour and Discipline policies in recognition that the Disability Discrimination Act allows for such adjustments. These include for students suffering from mental ill health or experiencing emotional or behavioural difficulties.

46. The hearing of students should be checked, and where necessary Speech and Language Therapy (SALT0 assessments should be carried out prior to labelling as student as having behavioural issues.

September 2010