Behaviour Policy Statement

The purpose of this policy is:

• To provide staff and volunteers, as well as children and young people and their families, with the overarching principles that guide our approach to Behaviour communication in our school. This policy applies to anyone working on behalf of our school, including senior managers, governors, paid staff, volunteers, sessional workers, agency staff and pupils.
• Encourage a calm, purposeful and happy atmosphere conducive to learning, developing skills and knowledge.
• Foster positive attitudes in our pupils towards themselves and others which recognises and values achievements at all levels.
• Enable pupils to recognise and appreciate socially constructive behaviour.
• Encourage increasing independence and self-discipline so each pupil learns to accept responsibility for the impact of their behaviour and those choices they do consciously make.
• Provide a consistent approach to behaviour management across the school so that pupils feel safe and secure in their school environment.
• Make boundaries of acceptable behaviour clear and understand the relationship between actions and consequences.
• Ensure all pupils feel safe in our school.
• Provide an interesting, well-planned curriculum that motivates pupils to learn alongside developing the social, emotional and communication skills.
• Implement mental health and trauma-informed approach to communication in our school.

Supporting documents

This policy statement should be read alongside our organisational policies, procedures, guidance and other related documents:

• recording concerns and information sharing
• code of conduct for staff and volunteers
• behaviour codes for children and young people
• online safety
• anti-bullying
• managing complaints
• whistleblowing
• health and safety
• induction, training, supervision and support
• adult to child supervision ratios.

We believe that:

Our school provides a caring, calm and secure environment in which tolerance, understanding and respect for others is fostered. We promote a positive culture and encourage all pupils to nurture a sense of responsibility to themselves, to our school and to the wider community. This is achieved through governors, staff, pupils, parents/carers and working in partnership.

To this end our school is committed to educational practices which Protect, Connect, Communicate, Relate, Learn and Grow.

We recognise that:

For some of our pupils attending school can be immensely daunting.

Many of our pupils have had prior educational experiences which have led them to have negative views of school, learning and often themselves.

Many of our pupils have also had life experiences that have led to trauma. Such experiences can impact upon their ability to communicate and express their needs, and feelings like sadness, anger, hurt and confusion. It is likely, that at times behaviours that professionals find challenging will be presented. Often this presentation is the way pupils express their sense of confusion, frustration, anger, anxiety, loss and hurt.

Our pupils need trusted, compassionate and understanding adults who can look beyond the it signals of distress and seek to understand the reasons behind it and offer safety, guidance and an environment that positively supports recovery and change. Our pupils really need those around them to understand that behaviours they may find challenging, are communications of distress, and to have empathy and understanding for the feelings being expressed, rather than responding primarily with discipline. In all we do to support those that care for our pupils we want to support them to ‘connect before they correct’.

Staff are encouraged to adopt a considered approach in order to meet the needs of individuals. Our fundamental belief is that every pupil has the potential for growth, has positive qualities and has the right to be treated with respect and dignity.

This policy is designed to promote a positive ethos of socially constructive behaviour in which pupils can work and play well together with other people. There is an expectation of behaviour in all aspects of the school day which places the needs of the pupil at its centre. We maintain the belief that pupils’ behaviour should be understood and pupils can be supported to develop more socially constructive behaviours in order to enable them to access learning and avoid the disruption to learning of others.

We will seek to keep children and young people safe by:

• valuing, listening to and respecting pupils
• developing and implementing an effective online safety policy and related procedures
• providing effective management for staff and volunteers through supervision, support, training and quality assurance measures so that all staff and volunteers know about and follow our policies, procedures and behaviour codes confidently and competently.
• recording and storing and using information professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance [more information about this is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk/fororganisations]
• making sure that children, young people and their families know where to go for help if they have a concern
• creating and maintaining an anti-bullying environment and ensuring that we have a policy and procedure to help us deal effectively with any bullying that does arise
• ensuring that we provide a safe physical environment for our children, young people, staff and volunteers, by applying health and safety measures in accordance with the law and regulatory guidance
• building a safeguarding culture where staff and volunteers, children, young people and their families, treat each other with respect and are comfortable about sharing concerns.