Behaviour policy
ethos and value
Working in Lessons
This would include behaviour such as:
- Listening to teachers’ instructions and explanations about the lesson – doing the task asked of you as well as you are able.
- Asking for help when it is needed.
Refusing to take part in a lesson or causing disruption to classes prevents other people from learning and is not acceptable.
Keeping to the Routines of the School
This would include behaviour such as:
- Going to the right place for different lessons and activities during the school day. Wandering away from a designated area is unacceptable because it wastes people’s time, can be dangerous and prevents learning from taking place.
- Keeping away from places where access is not allowed either because they are private or dangerous. This would include people’s offices and personal rooms, staff rooms, the roof and the boiler house.
- Ensuring that all aspects of the School’s Non-Smoking Policy are adhered to at all times.
- Handing in any personal items not appropriate to the school environment, including hats, personal stereos, cigarettes, mobile telephones, etc. Any young person found to be in possessions of a knife, or other offensive item, will be reported immediately to the Police by the Headteacher.
- Behaving in ways that are safe and therefore do not put other people at risk. Spitting is unacceptable; spitting at other people may result in exclusion. Everyone in the school has a responsibility to use safely the equipment that is available. It is dangerous and unacceptable to experiment with drugs or solvents.
Encouraging Appropriate Behaviour
To encourage pupils to develop an awareness of their own behaviour and its effects on others and to help them develop mature and thoughtful self-control, we use a variety of strategies based on the following beliefs:
- That appropriate and supportive behaviour should always be acknowledged, valued and rewarded.
- That young people’s self-esteem should be enhanced.
- That inappropriate behaviour will be challenged.
The principle strategy that we use to value and regard appropriate and supportive behaviour is our daily points system. Bonus points totalled during each day go towards providing a reward at the end of the day and each term. These rewards in the past have included such things as:
- Go-kart racing
- Quad-bike racing
- Trips to Theme Parks
- The cinema
- Watermeadows
The school regularly uses informal rewards to acknowledge the value of appropriate positive behaviour and these include:
- Verbal praise from staff
- Certificates
- Praise letters sent home to parents
- Specific individual praise from the staff in assemblies
- Informal rewards – additional bonus points
Discouraging Unacceptable Behaviour
We recognise the need to challenge inappropriate behaviour within an understanding, caring, supportive context, but equally recognise that at times the acting-out behaviours of the young people with whom we work can be so extreme that the challenge needs to be very structured and very direct.
Staff are encouraged to use a range of strategies depending upon individual circumstances. We aim to ensure that these strategies are supportive and helpful to the young person in enabling them to recognise the gravity of the difficulties that their unacceptable behaviours present in order that they should develop an understanding as to why their behaviour may well be viewed as inappropriate. Strategies in order to achieve this might include:
- Verbal challenge and reprimand from staff.
- Isolation and detention.
- Discussion of incidents with a senior member of staff.
- The recording of the incident on the School Incident Sheets.
- Discussion of the difficulty with individual parents and carers.
- Debating bonus points in order to pay for deliberate damage.
