Context for joining Behaviour Hubs
Curledge Street Academy is a two-form entry school with a large nursery setting from 2-years-old and is part of the Thinking Schools Academy Trust. The school joined the Trust in 2023. The school has 380 pupils on roll from year R-6 with a further 73 pupils in nursery.
The school is significantly above national for both PP and SEND with 43% of children identified as PP and 29% of children identified as having SEND. The school is above national average by 2% for children with an EHC plan at 4.5%. This is likely to increase by a further 1.5 – 3% in the next 20 weeks.
We have an increasing % of EAL children with an increase from 11.8% to 14.6% in the last academic year and there are currently 18 different languages spoken within the school community. 83% of the school identify as white British. These demographics are generally evenly spread across the years however there are some key years groups where children are disadvantaged by multiple elements i.e Y2 currently has 28% EAL, 40% PP and 29% SEND with the highest EHCP % across the school at 9%. Both Year 4 and 5 have between 42-50% PP and 28-31% SEND.
Approximately 91% of children live within the most deprived wards of Torbay.
Behaviour challenges and goals
To improve the overall quality of provision (during lunchtimes) for all children Years 1-6, reduce the number of playground incidents and improve the overall feeling of safety on the playground for all children.
Challenges to this project came in many forms. The leadership team quickly identified a core plan for the provision by dividing up the playground space into ‘areas’ and being clear about the resources needed to make this successful. In order to ensure all areas were not only supervised but contained adults that were actively engaged in play we needed to redeploy staff and change staff break timings. The current MTAs were reluctant to change due to the possible timing issues in the hall and therefore staff buy-in was a challenge at the start.
Solutions to behaviour challenges
The Assistant Headteacher met with key mealtime assistants to ask for ideas for the new playground. Staff supported the development of the plan and ideas were taken into consideration during whole school staff meetings (the positivity and sense of value that this created amongst staff was later reflected in a staff survey). A follow up meeting was held where the AHT clearly described the plan for lunches and there were opportunities for further feedback and questions. The staff clearly understood the purpose of the plan and were able to see how this would benefit the overall experience children would have at lunchtimes.
We collaborated with the kitchen staff in order to change the timings of meal service to ensure children could have equitable time for eating and playing across lunchtime.
During phase assemblies, social norms and playground expectations were clearly outlined with the key stakeholder (children) so that accountability was able to be monitored.
Setting clear expectations for lunchtime routines was essential to the success of the plan. As part of our social norms work, the transition into the hall for eating and the transition at the end of the lunch break was carefully planned. This can also be seen in our CSA behaviour expectations video. The Behaviour Hubs virtual module on ‘creating systems and social norms’ was particularly useful in the development of this.
Impact on behaviour
Through SLT learning walks and lunchtime observations the quality of lunchtime behaviour has improved. This is evidenced by a significant reduction in playground behaviour incidents by two thirds. In the final three weeks of the previous lunchtime routine there were 60 incidents of playground behaviour compared to 21 in the first three weeks of the new routine.
Upon collecting pupil voice the pupils stated ‘I love using things on the other playground and now I get to see my sister’ and ‘I haven’t been in the water area since reception and we love it!’
Next steps on your behaviour journey
Continue to monitor the quality of lunchtime provision through learning walks, observations, pupil voice and carefully tracking the number of playground incidents. Where applicable, look to incorporate and embed school values within the playtime routine.