Has your school got naughty list?

We have a list of pupils who have specific needs and support in place for them.

We have a list of kids with allergies.

No naughty list!

They get a “mention” as in I’d like to mention Tom for his great sharing today at the end of the day by the teacher. Consistent good behaviour or effort gets a certificate of merit (they have to work hard for those) and 5 certificates of merit means an honour award presented at assembly. 3 or 4 kids on average across a school of 1100 get presented an honour award each week.

Ooh honestly I could talk about this all day, it's been such a paradigm shift in how I think. They basically "gentle teach" in the same way that I try to "gentle parent".

So to start with, there are high expectations and high standards of behaviour. All the times I've popped in (4-5 times, unannounced to drop stuff off etc) the classrooms have been busy but calm and focused. These high standards are coupled with the belief that children want to meet these standards. As such, the school doesn't use the words naughty, bad, disruptive, they only say disregulated. If a child is acting in a detrimental way in the classroom they take the approach of helping the child fix the problem in order to help them learn, rather than fixing the resulting behaviour.

But it all goes hand in hand with meeting their needs, so in the classroom under the whiteboard there are a stack of wobble cushions, a stack of fidget toys, there are sensory items to fiddle. The behaviour expectation is that children sit quietly on their spot in the carpet, so the tools are there to help them do so "Jayden, you look like you've got the wiggles- do you want a wobble cushion or a weighted toy to look after?", and so the child is encouraged to learn to self regulate their behaviour, rather than going in with a "you'll move to yellow if you don't sit on the mat". It empowers the child, lets them self advocate, rather than now giving them an extra worry of "I'm in trouble" on top of "I need to wiggle".

So you've got this positive feedback into the child's self esteem going on, and the kid now knows they're a good kid, and the next day the teacher has praised them for picking a wobble cushion on the way to the carpet and managing half the session without wandering. The day after that they manage even longer. The teacher then loudly tells the parent at pick up, "Mrs Smith, Jayden has has the most amazing day, he sat on the carpet nicely for a whole session. I was so proud".

And some days Jayden will get it right, and some days he'll need a bit of support. Sometimes he'll get cross at having to join in, and some days he will be the first with his hand up. But they just seem to take the attitude that it's ok. They treat them like little adults- you're having a bad day? Ok, what do you need, in this moment, to help with that? Five minutes peace? Some fresh air? A run round. Ok let's do that then.

The teachers teach the children to learn and settle themselves before they really start learning. It is honestly.... Fascinating. There is just so much respect and trust between the children and the teachers. My mind is honestly blown by it.

I'm not sure what I thunk tbh. I'm not a teacher so I can't speak for how it compares to other techniques teachers use, but it seems effective from what ds says about it.

Ours has a traffic light system. They all start on green each day, then if they are naughty they move to yellow (they get the chance to apologise and correct the behaviour throughout the day and move back to green, no grudges born). If they continue they move to red for the rest of the day (missed play, parents called etc). Next day back to green. The kids don't come in already pre-listed as 'naughty'.

Presumably she'll then use that feedback to form conversations with the specific student in private.

My sons class does this sort of "secret student" thing - the teacher chooses a student but keeps it secret. As they all go through their day, the teacher will note good/bad behaviour from that student.

At the end of the day, if the secret student is due good feedback, they'll be named and told in front of everyone they were the secret student and what they did so well.

If they are due negative feedback, the class aren't told who it is, but as a group they'll be told roughly why the secret student didn't "win".

Exactly. Blaming a kid does nothing unless you try and work out with persistent bad behaviour why it's happening.

I for one know when my two are unhappy or have something going on. My older teen gets teary and hides in bed. DS gets angry and that's not like him.

I think it's the easier option for schools because they've got so many to teach and so much going on. So they have behaviour points and traffic lights and sunshine's and all that does is dehumanise children and have them as either good or bad, naughty or nice. It does nothing to sort the cause of the behaviour out.

This so much! It doesn't take a genius to realise that kids communicate with behaviour when they don't have the verbal capacity or emotional literacy to deal with big feelings.

It's up to the adults around them whether to punish their behaviour or address their difficulties. Having moved from a school that did the former to a school that does the latter, I can tell you which group of children are more relaxed, better behaved and engaged in their learning, and it's not the group of kids who aren't having their emotional needs met.

I've always found any of these systems at any age do nothing to stem the disruptive element who use it as a badge of honour, it scares and upsets the kids who do care.

Also, behaviour is subjective. Kids very rarely act up without a reason. It could be SEN/Autism. It could be family related, such as family break ups or disruption. It could be financial as a family in poverty isn't exactly a happy one, they could be going without a decent meal which will effect a child's whole behaviour. It could be tiredness.

One kid in my teen's form class last year (year 10 at the time) had over 400 behaviour points and sat countless detentions. When the read his tally out at the end of the year, rather than be ashamed he stood up and took a bow whilst several others clapped and found it hilarious (including DD who is a pretty good kid but knows that sometimes joining in is easier than being perceived as a nerd).

Our school has a traffic light system. All the kids try to stay on green but they can be moved to amber (which is a warning) and then to red (for consequences, if they don't heed the warning)

Consequences are missing playtime for x amount of minutes or whatever.

It could be that another child has called it "the naughty side" or "the naughty list" and your child has picked up on it.

I wouldn't go in all guns blazing about it, because controlling a room of 30 6 year old must be a nightmare!

Bold=naughty. Commonly used in Ireland.

It'll just be some sort of behaviour system and with Christmas just gone I expect it's the kids who've named it "the naughty list". No good teacher would use that terminology for something like this

It's like teachers using colours or shapes for ability sets. It's supposed to be so the kids don't know which set is which, but they always know 😁

Bold?

What does that mean? Courageous and brave ?

I imagine it's some variation on the sun/rain cloud form of behaviour management. Pretty outdated and poor strategy now but some schools do keep flogging this horse and thinking they can fix problematic behaviour rooted in SN/trauma/mental health/attachment difficulties by sticking a small child's name on a cloud.

Our school uses a warning and reward system. All the kids know who has what because they see the behaviour for themselves.

This is what my daughter's first school did, we moved her from the school after a year and a half because (amongst other things) the way they implemented it wasn't very nice and wasn't altered for children with disabilities. It was a stressful mechanism for a lot of children.

New school only uses positive discipline and natural consequences, and bizarrely has a much higher standard of behaviour.