Context for joining Behaviour Hubs
The school is a secondary special school for pupils aged 11 to 16 years. The school is designated as complex needs and therefore pupils can have needs across the 4 areas of SEND (cognition and learning, communication and interaction, social, emotional and mental health, physical and sensory). The primary area of need of most of the pupils is moderate learning difficulty though most have additional needs as well as.
We also have a specialist hub in Telford Langley school for pupils who have cognition and learning and /or social communication needs.
As a school we are oversubscribed as our PAN is 160. The hub is at PAN at 8. Currently, our number on roll for Southall School is 192 (going to 193 in June 2024). The hub currently has 7 pupils.
| Gender | Boys 69.43 % (134) Girls 30.57% (59) |
| Pupil Premium | 59.06% (114) (40 girls) |
| Free School Meals | 52.85% (102) |
| Looked After Children | 3.17% (6) |
| Ethnicity | White British 78.76% (152)
White English 2.07% (4) Indian 0.52% (1) Bangladeshi 1.55% (3) Pakistani 0.52% (1) Mirpuri Pakistani 3.63% (7) Other Pakistani 0.52% (1) Chinese 0.52% (1) Black European 1.04% (2) Black African 2.07% (4) White European 2.07% (4) White / Asian 1.04% (2) White / Black African 1.55% (3) White / Black Caribbean 2.07% (4) Any other Asian background 0.52% (1) Other mixed background 0.51% (1) Refused 0.52% (1) |
| Moderate Learning Difficulty | 162 = 83.9% |
| Severe Learning Difficulty | 16 = 8.29% |
| Autism (diagnosis) | 60 =31.08% |
| Physical difficulty | 12 = 6.2% |
We were judged as ‘Good’ by Ofsted in July 2019. We are currently working hard to reach ‘Outstanding’. The key areas identified to develop further are:
- Further improve the quality of leadership by:
- Ensuring that middle leaders are consistently driving improvements in their areas of responsibility
- Ensuring that information is used well to give leaders and staff a clear overview of what they need to do to meet their key priorities
- Evaluating, refining and embedding strategies for improvement so that they help leaders to continue to develop high-quality provision in the school.
Behaviour challenges and goals
- To create a positive behaviour model that clearly articulates what good behaviour looks like at Southall School
- To map out what the ‘Behaviour Way’ phases of behaviour look like (instead of only the consequences/actions when students are placed in one of the four ‘behaviour way’ categories) so that they are easily understood in relation to threshold identifiers
- To ensure that the positive behaviour systems are high priority and consistently employed across the school as part of the graduated response to behaviour
- To develop an implementation/change model that supports leaders to undertake a logically sequenced approach to identifying areas for improvement and drive forwards improvements.
- To review the behaviour policy so that it reflects the expertise of specialists staff and supports the pupils learn the skills of self-management of behaviours linked to their SEN
- To review the behaviour rewards system to ensure that pupils find value in the rewards/points and invest in the systems
- To review the start of the lessons after break and lunch so that pupils have ‘sensory dampening’ opportunities before transitioning into learning
- To create a training programme that ensures that all staff understand the behaviour systems/categories/identifiers
- To develop a system whereby pupils are active participants in the points system to teach pupils the language of positive behaviour and how they can use this to help them change/modify their own behaviours
Due to the wide-ranging needed of pupils from complex pupils working at early years levels through to pupils accessing GCSEs, there was inconsistency in approach.
The staff survey at the start of the programme also highlighted that staff felt the behaviour system was being used inconsistently.
Pupils were unable to communicate what ‘good behaviour’ looks like and instead would refer to what they should not do. This demonstrated that the school needed to implement a behaviour approach focused on positive behaviour and what this looks like for Southall School.
Solutions to behaviour challenges
- Empowering and using pupil voice to help inform and create the behaviour policy.
- Created a reward system that is clear on what is expected of pupils.
- Liaised with external professionals such as the Educational Psychologist.
- Staff CPD to introduced and upskill staff on the new reward system.
- Staff CPD through the Educational Psychology Service to upskill staff on positive behaviour strategies (Emotion Coaching).
- Reviewed the behaviour policy and behaviour way model with pupil and staff voice shaping the new policies and systems.
Impact on behaviour
The positive behaviour system has had a positive impact at Southall School:
- Behaviour incidents saw a 24.9% decrease from the Autumn term 2023, to Spring term 2024.
- Southall School values are embedded with pupils and staff through assemblies, reward system. Posters have been embedded across the school environment to promote behaviour and ensure a consistent approach.
- The staff survey indicated that there has been a 5% increase from the autumn term to the summer term in staff feeling confident in helping pupils understand how to behave well.
- The staff survey indicated that there has been a 6% increase from the autumn term to the summer term in staff thinking that pupils have been respectful to each other every day.
- The staff survey indicated that 0% of staff now think that the school has not been calm and orderly (summer term) compared to the autumn term, where 2% of staff felt that the school had not been calm and orderly.
- The staff survey indicated that in the summer term, 0% of staff think that parents/carers are not supportive of the school’s behaviour rules.
- The staff survey indicated that in the summer term, all staff think that it is easy, for pupils to follow (in practice) the school’s rules on pupil behaviour, compared to 8% in the autumn term who felt it was not easy for pupils to follow.
Next steps on your behaviour journey
The next steps for Southall School to:
- Continue to review, and where necessary, adapt the change implementation. This will be to ensure consistency.
- Embed the new behaviour way system through posters, assemblies and staff CPD.
- Review the CPD model at Southall School and ensure that staff are being meaningfully trained and provided the skills to support all pupils.