Context for joining Behaviour Hubs
Ridgewood is 11-16 mainstream school in Stourbridge, West Midlands, with approximately 600 students. We are part of the Stourvale MAT. The school has 28% of students in receipt of Pupil Premium and 16% on the SEND register. The school population is mainly white English, who account for 87% of students.
We have been a ‘requires improvement school’ since December 2019, having previously been placed in special measures in February 2018. Behaviour and attitudes were rated Good at the last inspection.
Behaviour challenges and goals
As a school we felt we had made some great strides in behaviour when changes were made in 2018. We believed the Behaviour Hubs programme would allow us to evaluate our current standards, and then work on some key areas to push the school forward. The focus was on improving the messaging to the students of ‘why’ we need to do things as well as the message being delivered. Our aims were to:
- Improve student punctuality in school with students becoming more aware of why it is important as part of being READY for school
- Tighten up the rules on mobile phones so students were always READY to learn and all students could feel more SAFE
- Improve student transitions around school at key points including the dining hall and stairways
- Provide a simple coherent strategy for staff and students to settle classes and show RESPECT
- Establish a repeated three weekly focus so that key areas were routinely visited to help make key actions sustainable – attendance/punctuality, uniform and electronic devices.
The main school lead on Behaviour Hubs was new in post as AHT at the start of the programme. Though familiar with the school, it meant that there was a steep learning curve required as they adapted to the new role and the demands of the programme.
When implementing new approaches, it is important to consider the timing and level of information being communicated to the key stakeholders of colleagues, parents and students. Information overload can have a significant impact of the level of key information being retained.
Also, when you implement new approaches, there may be some resistance to change from these key stakeholders. Consistent application of these new rules is always a factor, so it was important that staff felt empowered and supported in enforcing these new rules.
We also anticipated that once we made changes, there would be an initial surge in incidents eg. numbers of mobiles being confiscated, AM/PM lates and unauthorised lates being recorded.
Solutions to behaviour challenges
Punctuality
The first change was to bring forward the time at which our register closed in the morning. This meant by setting a higher bar, we had an increase of unauthorised lates and the subsequent knock on effect on our attendance. However, as the year wore on this was reduced.
There was a 50% reduction in unauthorised late (U) marks to AM/PM registration from the half term when the rules were introduced to the most recent half term.
Later in the school year we introduced a new consequences system for punctuality. This focused on those who had excellent punctuality and sanctions for those who were registering late marks.
There was a 44% reduction in late (L) marks to AM/PM registration from the half term prior to the rules being introduced to the most recent half term.
KS 3 DISCUSSION GROUP with visitor from our Behaviour Hubs Lead School
Question- has punctuality to school improved?
Response: 100% of pupils agreed, it has improved.
Though we are pleased with the improvements, there is still work to do with a small number of students.
Mobile Phones
The mobile phones rules were tightened and the previous warning that students had was removed. Therefore, any phone seen in class or during the school day was confiscated. The first week this was introduced saw a high number of phones confiscated, however over time this reduced.
There was a 58% reduction in mobile phones confiscations from the first half term the rules were introduced to the most recent half term.
KS 3 DISCUSSION GROUP with visitor from our Behaviour Hubs Lead School
Question: has the culture improved off the back of mobile phones not being allowed within lessons and insight of adults?
Response: 100% of pupils agreed, it had improved the school culture.
Behaviour Hubs Pupil Survey
How often did pupils use a mobile device when not supposed to:
- Initial survey-Never/rarely – 55%
- Follow up survey Never/rarely 69%
We also introduced a weekly focus of:
- Wk1-Attendance/punctuality
- Wk2-Uniform
- Wk 3- Electronic devices.
This was from what we had seen at our Behaviour Hubs Lead School. This repeated throughout the year and allowed us to revisit the key message with staff and students.
We had assemblies on transitions and how to line up at the dinner hall. This showed the students exactly what was expected. The dinner hall entrance improved dramatically and there was some improvement in transitions. However, upon our recent Lead School visit, some of the students have identified a couple of areas of the school were there it is too crowded, and we will to revisit this.
We introduced a new way to settle the students based on an idea at our Lead School, Duston. Posters were produced for each room and staff shown the expectations at Inset. Students also had an assembly on this. On our Lead School follow up visit, it showed that this was still inconsistent and posters in each room were not always visible. Staff response was mixed on this and it was not heard in all classrooms so further staff training will be done in September.
Behaviour Hub staff survey
The table below represents the percentage of responses that ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ to questions.
| Behaviour hubs staff questionnaire | Initial survey
|
Follow up survey |
| There is a clear vision of what is expected and meant by good behaviour. | 83 | 97 |
| Our school behaviour rules and procedures help make the school a safe and happy place. | 90 | 100 |
| It is clear how I should apply the behaviour rules consistently and fairly across the school environment, including making reasonable adjustments. | 70 | 91 |
| Leaders and managers monitor and analyse behaviour data and take swift, reasonable action to address issues. | 53 | 75 |
| Pupils are provided with information to ensure they know how they are expected to behave when they join the school, and then regularly reminded / updated. | 73 | 91 |
| Appropriate training and development is available to ALL staff to support them with behaviour management.
|
43 | 76 |
The follow up survey asked staff to compare specific aspects of behaviour over the last 12 months. A score of 1 indicated that things had got worse, a score of 4 indicated that things had remained the same and a score of 7 indicated that things had improved.
Questions which are linked with areas of the case study with their associated average scores:
- Pupil understanding of rules and consequences of not following them – 5.4
- Clarity of behaviour rules and processes – 5.3
School visitors
We have had two visits from our Behaviour Hubs Lead School, Duston HS. Both times the feedback has been positive. On our follow up visit, it was commented, ‘I have loved being here….it was brilliant to see the school in action….you should be really proud of your school.’
Impact on behaviour
Behaviour at Ridgewood is considered to a key part of all the SLT staff responsibilities and not left to one person to manage. This made it easier for the new incumbent to settle into post. Behaviour would also form part of SLT agendas which allowed ideas to be discussed and debated at regular intervals.
Staff Inset training was built in to help deliver the information and thought processes behind it.
Changes were introduced at different times as to prevent overload. Prior to introducing changes, parents were informed, and students had assemblies. The link to life beyond Ridgewood was consistently reinforced as part of the ‘why’ messaging.
The introduction of a recurring three weekly messaging was also important in creating this new culture, making it sustainable and more likely to be retained.
All the training modules within the Behaviour Hubs programme were particularly useful. However, ‘Creating systems and social norms’ and ‘Consequences’ reinforced key messages and the importance of sticking to them. Leadership and Management highlighted the importance of time, such as Inset, being devoted to behaviour expectations resets and making sure everyone is consistent. The Attendance and Punctuality directly related to one of our areas to develop and helped us communicate that attendance was everyone’s responsibility.
The Open days at St Augustine’s and Duston School and the networking day at Cromer were all excellent. It was great to see routines in operation and consistent, visual/verbal messaging around the schools. Seeing these good and outstanding practices shaped some of our strategy. It was reassuring that some of our current beliefs and practices were similar to what we saw and heard which we aimed to consolidate moving forward. The Cluster Networking Day at Duston was also very useful as staff well-being was the main focus, but a variety of other topical issues were discussed. As this was part way through our plan, it allowed us to reflect on our journey and check in with our Lead School.
Next steps on your behaviour journey
- Set targets moving forward
- Review our behaviour policy. Simplify it for staff and students and make it more overt. More focus on teaching behaviour at the beginning of the year and revisiting at key points
- Improve behaviour logging processes for staff using Edulink
- Improve consistency of processes – Reintegration/Supervised learning/Waves of intervention
- Better data analysis using Assembly pro.