Context for joining Behaviour Hubs
We are a specialist setting for students with a diagnosis of autism. We educate students from ages 4-19 who are working at, or around, age-related expectations.
Behaviour challenges and goals
Time – We have recently gone through a change of MAT which has impacted staff workload with a variety of new initiatives. We have had to manage the rollout of new
behaviour strategies to limit cognitive load for staff.
Finding a system that works for our wide age range – 4 to 19 is a huge age group for a single behaviour strategy to be effective.
Logging and tracking using existing systems is tricky – Bromcom doesn’t allow timetables to be recorded in different ways, but our upper and lower schools follow
different timings and structures.
Developing a whole school approach with shared focus and goals.
Consistent approaches to behaviour from all staff members.
Solutions to behaviour challenges
- Collected staff voice to understand what the difficulties were for staff on a day-to-day basis.
- Developing the idea of core values that underpin behaviour strategies in school to support buy-in and understanding by all parties. Many of the Behaviour Hubs schools follow this system, and we have seen and heard anecdotal evidence of the positive impact that this can provide, not least through supportive scripts for staff use.
- Developing a new staff handbook which clearly sets out expectations of staff (our Lead School, Oak Bank, provided support through their documentation).
- We have worked with our trust to understand how Bromcom can log and track behaviours; we started with positive points and are currently exploring how negative points can be logged alongside.
Impact on behaviour
- Large scale behaviours are greatly reduced across school. The number of RPIs has reduced to only one this school year, and this was as a result of an autistic meltdown.
- Staff conversations about behaviour are becoming increasingly reflective and in a recent collection of staff voice, low level disruption is now the biggest concern for staff.
- Staff have also agreed on what good and poor behaviours look like, which gives a clear position to support each other in behaviour management.
Next steps on your behaviour journey
- Our MAT is currently exploring universal behaviour systems which we need to mesh with our own.
- Rolling out the completed staff handbook and embedding in practice.
- Completing the recording of behaviour in Bromcom to include negative behaviours.