Context for joining Behaviour Hubs
Our school is a one form entry Church of England primary school with a nursery setting attached. The school changed its name and intake in September 2023. Previously, St Budeaux was a junior school accepting children from feeder schools close by who have also now expanded to primary settings. We have 110 children; 6 children with EHCP; 2 of these children have severe SEMH needs. A further 6 children have high needs regarding behaviour as well as 7 children with moderate behaviour needs.
Our setting is within an area of high social deprivation close to the city centre of Plymouth.
Behaviour challenges and goals
Our goals were to create a calm, safe and happy environment for all stakeholders where children can be successful learners.
Our challenges were ‘buy in’ and ensuring a consistent approach from all staff, an over reliance on HoS and DHoS to manage behaviour, and the number of high needs children in one class.
Solutions to behaviour challenges
We are still working hard to overcome some of these barriers. Below are the actions taken which we have implemented since joining with the Behaviour Hubs programme. Ideas and initiatives are mostly formed from Networking, Coaching, training and open days events we have attended.
What have we done?
- Established New School Rules
School rules have been changed to: Be Kind, Be Safe, Be Responsible. These are much easier for the children to remember and can be referred to quickly by staff when dealing with incidents. This is an idea picked up from the initial programme training, and after consultation with the children the new rules were agreed and rolled out through the school. The children are very confident with their understanding of the rules. The rules are also linked to our Christian values and the school vision.
- CPD for staff – non-negotiables
In September, CPD was held on a non-pupil day where all staff attended (including office staff). This training informed all staff of the changes to the school rules and the behaviour policy. It also introduced the family dining concept. All staff were part of the discussion and agreed how this might work and also agreed on the whole school non-negotiables of behaviour expectations e.g. walking silently through school at all times; changes to how the children leave the playground at the end of breaks. The children no longer line up – they walk into the school building after the whistle. Adults are along the route into school to supervise.
Throughout the year we have had regular check ins with staff to monitor actions and adapt where necessary, for example, the children walk in a class at time from break times to avoid potential issues between children. There is a whistle 5 minutes before the end of break so the equipment can be put away and any issues involving footballs etc can be dealt with before children come in.
Adults monitor cloakrooms for potential incidents and to ensure that children enter the main building in silence ready to learn. Adults are also available to greet the children at the classroom door to welcome them at the start of the day and when returning from break.
- Family dining
Family dining was introduced in September, where half the school are in the dining hall for 25 minutes and half are outside, then they swap. There have been several different versions of this tried throughout the year, with a different mix of classes to try and get the right balance of behaviour needs across the two sittings. In its current form the school are completely mixed up into two groups. This has helped to make further improvements to the behaviour at lunch time as well as managing high needs children who would react to certain peers. The children and MTA’s have fed back that the outside behaviour has improved immensely. CPOMS logs show a significant reduction in behaviour incidents at lunchtimes. Before starting family dining, we were alerted to an average of 15 serious incidents a week where as now it averages about 1 or 2 and sometimes no reports a week.
The children have a dedicated seat in the dining hall, the teachers devised the seating plan to ensure everyone has a friend on their table. There is a mixture of different year groups on each table.
- Change in language used by staff:
Some changes in the language used to deal with the children have been introduced. At the current time, this is not consistently used across the school. We will be introducing the ‘Warm, Strict’ approach (initiative from St James’ Community College) as well as further scripting for various situations.
- Simplified Behaviour Policy/Steps
The behaviour policy has been simplified with very clear steps: Reminder – Warning – Consequence. This includes careful explanation of the consequences is given. Consequences start with time out of the classroom to regulate behaviour, where the teacher touches base and helps the child to reset. Next, working in a ‘buddy’ classroom followed by time in during break to complete work missed. Finally, SLT involvement resulting in a phone call home. Further consequences can include: internal exclusion and suspension.
There is an emphasis on connection before correction. Helping children who are dysregulated to regulate themselves before attempting to deal with incidents. All behaviour incidents are recorded on CPOMs and actioned.
- STAR learning introduced:
To help with expectations of learning behaviour in class.
S – sit up
T – track the speaker
A – answer questions
R – respect others and school property
This initiative was introduced after visiting Marine Academy.
- High Needs Children
Bespoke learning/further adaptive teaching have been introduced over the past year for high needs children. Clear expectations of children with high needs are shared with them continuously and behaviour steps upheld. A mentor program has started where the children have trusted adults who check in on a regular basis.
Impact on behaviour
We have implemented these initiatives across the year and as a result, the behaviour in school is calmer and learning behaviours have improved. SLT from the Trust have noted the difference in school. ‘The feel of the school is different. I’ve been here for the day and we haven’t been disturbed!’
MTA: ‘We are now able to interact with the children in a more positive way because we are not having to deal with as many behaviour incidents – it is so different from last year. It is so much calmer’.
Office staff: ’More children are responding differently to staff – they are much more positive, and the feel of the school is calmer.’
Teacher: ‘The behaviour steps are clear and the children are receptive to them. They have a clear understanding of the expectations and consequences which has had a big impact on their behaviour for learning. The recent STAR learner initiative works really well, and the children react very positively to it.’
Pupil voice suggests that they think behaviour in school has improved from last year. When we talked about the initiatives put in place, they were very positive and said that it had an impact on the learning and general behaviour in school. They said that family dining was a more positive experience for them. They liked the fact that both packed and school dinners eat together, the playground has less people so is not as busy and there are less behaviour problems. They also like the fact that they have the opportunity to mix with children from across the school and not just their class.
Impact on suspensions:
Suspensions last year: 5 (serious incidents of behaviour which all occurred early in the year before work started with Behaviour Hubs)
Internal suspensions last year: 10
Suspensions this year: 0
Internal suspensions: 3
Reported CPOMs incidents have significantly reduced for incidents at lunchtimes as noted above.
Impact on SLT
HoS/DHoS are not called upon as often to manage behaviour. SLT cards have been used 3 times this year whereas last year we would have been called upon daily. This is due to pre-empting possible escalations in behaviour, more staff building positive relationships with children as well as feeling empowered to deal with behaviour incidents.
Next steps on your behaviour journey
- Tightening up on current initiatives ensuring consistency across the school
- ‘Warm, Strict’ approach to be shared and implemented
- Scripting to be shared as procedure policy
- Connection before correction to be revisited.