Context for joining Behaviour Hubs
Timberley Academy is a three-form, with 610 children on role, standalone academy in Shard End, Birmingham. In the past we were a resource base and continue to have children with physical and cognitive needs in all our years groups. We currently have 3% of our children with EHCP plans and 32% of our children on the SEN register. 52% of our children receive pupil premium.
Timberley is in an area of Birmingham with high deprivation. Since COVID we have struggled with behaviour, parental support with behaviour and resilience with our children.
Behaviour has been a priority on the school development plan for the last three years and we are now beginning to see improvements from the hard work put in by the whole school community.
We joined the Behaviour Hub programme to gain CPD and networking that we are not always able to access being a stand alone academy.
Behaviour challenges and goals
- Have a clear behaviour vision underpinned by high expectations and core values
- To empower and support all staff to take responsibility for behaviour
- Staff communicate effectively with parents regarding pupils achievements and wellbeing
- Pupils understand the contribution they make to the schools behaviour culture
- Learning mentors have clear identified groups that they regularly support
- In our 2019 Ofsted report behaviour was a strength of the school. Since the COVID pandemic we have seen a rise in persistent low-level behaviour as well as an increase in children reaching crisis point
- We are also getting more children join the school with complex behaviour needs due to lack of places in special schools
- Parental support has also decreased.
Solutions to behaviour challenges
Our culture change started with all staff being trained in classroom culture and verbal intervention strategies. From this we created our streamlined rules systems and our rewards and sanctions ladders. Having seen systems that are being used in other schools during network days and open days allowed us to revisit our own systems and make changes based on what we have seen.
The online CPD units from the Behaviour Hubs programme helped support senior staff in improving their own CPD. The units on creating systems and social norms and high challenge behaviour were most useful to us as they focussed on the areas we were looking at most improving.
As we moved into our third term, we established our culture and systems and were looking at focusing on the restorative approach in our reflection time. Visiting our Behaviour Hubs Lead School (Alston Primary) helped us build on systems we had already seen them present on at networking days helped us see how they put it into practice.
Impact on behaviour
Being part of the Behaviour Hubs programme has helped us establish a school culture that we are proud of. It has helped us solidify the systems that were beginning to be put into place at the start of this project and through visiting other schools on open days and networking days see good practice which we could amend or adjust for use in our own setting.
During our time working on the Behaviour Hubs programme we had an Ofsted inspection. The inspection report stated that:
Pupils are respectful and behave well. They understand the systems in place to support positive behaviour and enjoy earning rewards. Through its strong pastoral work, the school provides an appropriate balance of support and challenge for families where poor attendance is a concern.
From the start of this project to now we have seen:
- A robust behaviour policy created to fit our school
- A system of rewards and sanctions that are followed by the children
- A system of support for children who are persistently receiving red points, e.g. behaviour diaries
- A behaviour system that supports senior leaders to monitor
- Restorative questions being used in reflection time
- Teachers in classes using more praise and rewards to children showing the right behaviour instead of going straight for sanctions
- Morning greetings to start the day on a positive note
- Last year no children reached the platinum stage of the behaviour system, this year at least 30 are on track to meet this by July and 40% of children are on track to reach gold
- Learning mentors have clear timetables with groups to support social and emotional wellbeing
- A 70% reduction in mentors being called to support children in crisis in a monitored week
- A 95% reduction in SLT being called to support behaviour in a monitored week.
The following are significant improvements:
- 42% of children’s misbehaviour stops or interrupts teaching (84% at start of project)
- 71% of staff said they regularly see senior leaders around school (33% at the start of the project
- 68% of teachers said behaviour at our school was good or higher (26% at the start of the project)
- 68% of staff felt sanctions help minimalise behaviour in school. (22% at the start of the project)
- 68% of staff felt the school is calm and orderly. (11% at the start of the project)
- 72% of staff say they are respectful to each other. (33% at the start of the project).
Next steps on your behaviour journey
- To continue to improve classroom culture with all staff and pupils so it is consistent across the school
- To have a consistent praise system across all classrooms
- To have consistent restorative conversations happening by all staff.