Westrop Primary and Nursery School

Context for joining Behaviour Hubs

• Westrop is in a small town situated on the outskirts of Swindon in Wiltshire, it is a local Authority funded school. Currently the school is going through a process of change in preparation for joining a local academy. Currently the school is an alliance member of the Faringdon Learning Trust.
• Westrop Primary School is an average size school with approximately 374 children ages between 2 and 11 years.  Westrop Primary school is a 1.5 form entry Primary school and has 11 classes from Reception to Year 6 with a further 3 Nursery classes
• The number of Pupils with Pupil Premium/EYPP is slightly higher than the national average at 26%. We have 30 service children.
• 23% of pupils in school have SEND support 6% of these have an EHC plan. The school has a commitment to inclusion ensuring bespoke support for those identified as SEND overseen by the school SENCO.
• Attendance data shows that attendance at school is consistently above National average.
• The last OFSTED report in November 2022 rated the school as Good. The report highlighted some of the great work that has taken part at the school and recognised that the ethos of the school is one that is inclusive and ambitious with pupil’s wellbeing and achievement being paramount.
• The large majority of pupils are White British. Pupils from minority ethnic groups are well below the national average.

The main reasoning behind joining the program is because of the high levels of SEND needs across the school, it is paramount that we establish a recognised behaviour language which is simple and consistent for all. As a highly inclusive school with some complex SEND needs, we recognised that as a school behaviour was not always consistent, strategies and policies were not always followed. We recognised that this needed establishing more consistently for the confidence of staff, the understanding of the children and for the parents to understand what is happening in the setting.

Behaviour challenges and goals

• Create a culture of consistency across the school with both staff and children in understanding the meaning of our school rules- ready, respectful and safe.
• Increase the pride in the school- consistency in uniform, tidiness and appearance.
• Develop a set of consistent and embedded routines for children and staff to follow to ensure that everyone understands expectations.
• Create a new relationships policy based on the established rules and routines to ensure everyone including parents has a good understanding of expectations.
• Ensure parents understood this expectation with the introduction of a new behaviour booklet, policy and video.
• Support wellbeing and emotional literacy by introducing a consistent, across school program.
• Behaviour has never been particularly bad at Westrop, however, we noticed significant inconsistencies in approach to behaviour which meant that children were unsure of boundaries and expectations. This had a knock-on effect on a couple of more complex SEND SEMH children and small pockets of low-level behaviour across the school.
• Budget issues- a potentially negative budget put a hold on the buying of resources and equipment for the project until April 2024
• Time challenges- designating time to implement consistently, along with time for staff training
• A couple of staff needed more support in understanding the methodology behind the new routines and rules and received further training and support in implementing the new routines

Solutions to behaviour challenges

In order to achieve the above, we completed the following actions;

• Attended all online training modules September- December 2023 (Tara and Cindy). Discussion via modules with other settings, sharing good practice and ideas.
• Conducted an initial staff behaviour survey, this highlighted areas we expected around lack of consistency and the current behaviour policy being difficult to follow as it is too in depth.
• Met with partner school and visit from partner school in November 2023 to look at current behaviour. This included a learning walk which identified the following areas of focus- breaking down rules, clear uniform expectations, need to establish clear routines.
• Visited open days and networking events to share good practice, share ideas and to discuss progress towards outcomes in the program. We selected Begbrook Primary, St James’ Secondary, Marine Primary, Charles Dickens and Broadclyst Primary for our Open days and Networking events as we felt that these offered a wide variety of different settings and a range of contexts. It was interesting to see all of the different approaches to behaviour and through our learning on these visits, we have been able to create something unique for our setting.
• Completed whole school staff training Inset in January 2024- rolling out of pedagogy around behaviour management changes and roll out of routines. This training session had a focus on the work of Tom Bennett and the importance of teaching behaviour and that it should not just be expected. We shared the whole staff training module from behaviour hubs, interwoven with videos from Tom Bennett and our own personalised approach to behaviour at Westrop.
• Wrote whole school routines and procedures together to give ownership to staff with a clear reference to Sinek and providing the reason for why we were doing things. By the end of the session, we had clear routines for both children and staff for the most challenging parts of the day.
• Broke down with a core group of children as spokespeople the meaning behind our 3 school rules- Ready, Respectful and Safe. Created posters for the three rules and rolled them out to the whole school in assembly and during class circle times.
• Rolled out routines. Shared in classes, school assemblies. A focus each week with a reminder email throughout the week of what is expected, what to look out for, what to pull up and what to praise. The emphasis alongside this was the clear expectation that everyone is responsible for behaviour in school
• Purchased Widgit to create visuals and posters to back up newly established routines so that these are consistent and displayed. These were added to frames for visuals in corridors, shared areas and classrooms so that there is a consistent and visual message around school.
• Wrote a parent booklet and created a school rules video with QR code to be shared with parents during induction evenings for new classes so that parents also have a clear understanding of our rules and routines across the school. Behaviour booklet has also been added to the school induction pack and new Reception started pack for 2024.
• Completed weekly reminder emails outlining expectations for the week- what we are looking for each new term in assembly and in classes a PowerPoint presentation was shared to go over what our school rules mean and an emphasis on Fantastic Walking and Legendary lining up.
• Wrote a new relationships policy including new broken-down rules and routines, core language and expectations in a more simplified format to share with staff and parents.
• Sent out a reminder letter to parents about uniform and presentation expectations to increase pride in appearance and the feeling of a team spirit in school.

Impact on behaviour

• All children have a clear understanding of what our three school rules are and are able to say what some of the expectations of these rules are, these are still being embedded as the broken-down rules were only rolled out this year
• All children know how to do a legendary line up and fantastic walk around school. Majority of adults are also on board with this and there has been a noticeable increase in more adults picking up on children and correcting children not performing these routines correctly
• The school has a clear language for behaviour and there is increased consistency across the school. Including- team stop, magnet eyes etc. this has been shown on our core behaviour language boards displayed around school.
• Pupils are taking more pride in their behaviour, trying hard to get recognised for following the rules and routines and are responding well to positive praise for following these routines.
• Less time is wasted in behaviour management when moving around in and out of school. The majority of classes have fully embedded the legendary line up including line spaces which means that transitions are smoother and faster, therefore increasing teaching and learning time.
• Decrease on CPOMs since January 24 in incidents logged as behaviour (low level). Evidence suggests that because routines and rules are more embedded, children understand expectations and low-level behaviour generally is decreasing in classes. In September 23 there were 120 incidents logged on CPOMs, January 142 incidents and in May 24 there were 62 logged incidents.
• Increase in staff survey in good general behaviour across school, better understanding of children about rules and routines. General consensus that behaviour has improved since the introduction of greater expectations with the odd pockets of single children still requiring intervention. 100% of survey respondents said that they felt that the clarity of the behaviour rules and processes has increased. Everyone agreed that the policy, rules and routine are easy to follow and that there is increased consistency in how and when behaviour rules and processes are applied

Next steps on your behaviour journey

• September TD inset- Roll out of Zones of Regulation across the whole school- bespoke to our school with the inclusion of the colour monsters already embedded.
• Roll out of new Relationship Policy to replace current behaviour policy- this will tighten up all rules and routines already embedded.
• Continuation of rules and routines across school including nursery to increase automaticity of good behaviour. This includes the termly re-teach of expectations around rules and routines.
• Have behaviour as a rolling agenda item during staff meetings to ensure its high profile.
• Targeted support for a couple of members of staff who have struggled with implementing new behaviour rules and routines and understanding of relational approach to behaviour.