Experiences of reinforcing positive behaviours in Primary Schools

[BusyMum1978]

Hello, I am a governor for a primary school, currently looking at the school improvement plan / behaviour policy. I am doing some research on reinforcing positive behaviours. Our school has a good system for addressing negative behaviour, but would like to develop a better system for capturing the good. I would really appreciate any feedback - from state or private - on what really works in your children's schools. What incentives motivate your children to make the right decisions, go the extra mile with their own work, and improve the way they treat others. What rewards make them really proud of themselves? In particular it would be great to know how the House system is used to drive positive behaviour, and how this is linked to the school's values. Thanks :)

I was a Governor until recently. We had an excellent behaviour policy but the Governors were not involved in writing it. We expected our professional staff to do this. If your staff are not sufficiently skilled to do this, it’s s good idea to get a behaviour adviser into school for training. The reason that staff should do it is that they have to own it and implement it. That’s not the role of a Governor. You monitor it. If there are issues with it, you behaviour lead should be amending it. Possibly that member of staff needs more training?

What works? Reinforcing good behaviour. We used the Golden Rules. Reinforced by written and aural praise, smiles, use of a behaviour chart, house points, displayed work, good behaviour sticker sent home, recognition in assembly, and lots of other things.

Thanks for your response. The staff are writing the policy, however as a Governor reviewing school policies I want to ensure they are outstanding, effective, and are procedural too. It's not my role to write the policy, but it is my role to approve it, and evaluate the way it works within the school. As part of my due diligence, I want to understand what works well for other schools. It's important for me to have this understanding in order to review comprehensively. Yes I trust the staff, but my role is to hold them to account, but to do so in a collaborative way. I understand other Governors will have different approaches to reviewing policies, however for all the school policies, I like to review what many other schools do too.

Sounds very operational?

If you are in England the DfE handbooks helpful. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/788234/governance_handbook_2019.pdf

All governance boards, no matter what type of school or how many schools they govern, have three core functions:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
• Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the effective and efficient performance management of staff; and
• Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.

I think schools should be encouraging young people about emotions rather than good or bad behaviour. The best examples I’ve seen are where have four colours (green happy, blue sad/quiet/worried, yellow getting frustrated and angry). Children then mark where they are at beginning of day and they or teachers move them around as needed - still punishment for red but done in way that’s more understanding (so take some breaths, see head etc).
The world would have better adults I think if they children are taught to recognise and mange emotions and how to support others with theirs.

BusyMum1978: Whilst I admire your enthusiasm and attempt at diligence, I’m not sure you have thought through how you are approaching this.

It would be impossible to know how well any behaviour policy is working elsewhere unless you have the reports and evidence from the individual schools where you admire the policies. They could look great but might be extraordinarily difficult for staff to follow and no evaluation done regarding the effect they have.

You could easily check on policies by looking on the web sites of schools. The policies will vary because they should be individually thought through and have parental involvement. So no two will be identical. Ownership of the policy by staff, children and parents is vital for success. MN contributors will have a huge number of ideas and anecdotes about good behaviour policies but they are not tailored to your school.

I think you are taking on a lot as an individual. What Committee reviews behaviour? How does it do it? What reports, data and evidence do you get from the Head? How is this informing the new policy? Is it in your SIP? How do you monitor this? You, as a Governor, cannot really evaluate how well this policy is working in isolation. The Head and behaviour lead must give the Governors this information. Your reports feed into this.

The Governors act strategically by asking for elements of the policy to be reviewed if there are clear signs of weakness that have been flagged up to you. You are not really in a position to judge the effectiveness of your policy by referring to other schools and their success. How will you judge this? You are surely not in school every day? You need evidence from your Head and behaviour lead and this should be recorded systematically on your Improvement Plan as evidence of improvement.

You should, however, visit the school and make behaviour your focus. Do not make judgements. Ask for the lead member of staff to agree a very specific focus with you and ask for data and evidence on the area of behaviour you have agreed to look at. Agree how you will observe within school. Afterwards, review what you have observed with the staff. Write a report as evidence of Governor engagement. You will then have seen an aspect of the policy in action. You could also do a learning walk with behaviour as the focus.

Ask for regular meetings with the lead member of staff. I would never go armed with good ideas of your own from other schools or be informed by “what really works” elsewhere. It just might be wholly irrelevant to your school.

I know one school with a challenging catchment that’s very clear about its rewards. They’re of the opinion that there should be an expectation of good behaviour to start with (ie not that their children are less capable because of their demographic) so you don’t need to dangle a long list of ‘rewards’ (little gifts, stickers etc) in front of them and negative behaviour has consequences. They believe children should want to behave well and therefore the reward is their own sense of achievement which can be through public/ private praise or asking the child identify themselves what they’ve done well. Work to head teacher or another class for praise- catching up with a parent at home time. That kind of thing. They also have very clear no tolerance consequences for negative behaviour. The school has a very loving atmosphere and happy, achieving children.

The Government’s guidance on Behaviour and Discipline (2016) says a mixture of rewards for good behaviour is appropriate. Therefore a few stickers are definitely ok but these are just a small part of an effective policy. No policy should be about dangling gifts and stickers and nothing else. All schools start with an expectation of good behaviour but these policies are Behaviour and Discipline so have to cover both aspects.

We have a huge number of rewards in our school. First of all, house point system throughout the school, marble jar collection in class (marbles for good effort, when the jar is full the class can chose the reward - e.g. disco, a movie, pj day etc), whole school star of the week, assembly rewards with certificates, stickers in homework and reward stickers for reading - there are other things I'm sure. My DD recently got star of the week and received a handwritten card in the post from the Head - it's become one of her most treasured possessions.

@Justapatchofgrass sorry I don't understand the point you are making. I understand what is in the governor handbook, you have extracted the highest level definition. My responsibility is to work with the school on both a strategic and an operational basis. I do not intend to sit on a perch and hide in strategy. What matters to me is that our school's policies translate into effective working practice. Therefore as part of my evaluation process I like to research what works well elsewhere.

@BubblesBuddy thank you for your reply. I have thought through my approach. I do have a specific responsibility for behaviour, and I will / have been doing a number of observational visits at the school and speaking to the relevant members of staff. I am researching information from a variety of sources, and have reviewed six behaviour and anti-bullying policies from other schools in similar and different demographics. However I still feel there is value in anecdotal views, I do not intend to write a list and march into the heads office, but when I am in conversations with the teaching staff I feel better prepared by having as much information, from as many sources as possible.

I'm afraid you, as a Governor, do not have an operational basis at all. You are not well informed about your role. Therefore I suggest you do a bit more training to understand how Governors evaluate and challenge the school to improve. This is never done by an operational remit. It simply is not your role.

You would not be hiding if you followed my advice. Have you ever done a learning walk? What behaviour focus could you have when you do one? Do you meet your behaviour lead regularly? What are they doing about writing a new policy? Are you in receipt of robust data and evidence about how well policies are working? Is the school engaging with parents and DC about a behaviour strategy? What is in your Improvement Plan and how do you know it is having an effect? All of this is is for you to challange the school on, not do it yourself.

Your evaluation process is not helped by looking at other schools. You do not have their data or evidence. You would have no idea if their policies are successful.

Your job is to question the policy. What evidence over a period is there that it works?. If it does not work is it the same children ? Same teacher? Does everyone follow the policy even the dinner ladies and office staff? Why was this approach taken? How do your figures for Exclusion compare locally and nationally. If there is an issue with a group/ certain children then you dig into who this are and their background story. You consider the cultural capital of your children and how this may effect their behaviour and learning. You look at when there are more problems and see if at lunch you need more engagement. You look at how and when parents are involved. The policy should not be a stand alone policy but be linked into attendance, safeguarding, bullying, Send and EAL and access and equality policy to name a few. Your induction procedure for parents should include expectations. How do you communicate a problem with EAL parents? When did Governors walk around school and ask children about behaviour and expectations, how is it celebrated? is your starting point to low? Good behaviour should be the norm? Incidents of bullying,racial abuse? What does school do in PHSE to reinforce good behaviour. When was the staff and Governors behaviour policy reviewed? The So what factors

As a clerk i would be steering you away from that level of operational involvement as outside the remit of a governor.
Your role is to check the policy provided by your HT to whom you have delegated the operational side. You check it reflects the vision, ethos and strategic direction that the board has set, meets any statutory guidance and is personal to your school not a generic school.

Then you monitor its effectiveness. You do that with data and visits where you talk to staff and the children. You want to see evidence of good learning behavior (not just behaviour - its no good them all sitting quietly staring forwards which might look like good behaviour - They want to be alert, listening, asking questions, able to talk about what they are learning) You want to see evidence that things in the policy are being used to promote that good learning behaviour, asking staff how they use it to support them or not. Then write a report on it to feed back to the board.

Sorry: cross posted. Having been a governor for many years, I just would not use the approach you are talking about. There is nothing wrong with being informed about what might be in a good policy but you cannot have the inside information to know if it is working at the other schools. Anecdotal views are useless in my view. They are not based on evidence of what works. They are a snapshot of someone else's school. You must evaluate your own school and your own policy and update that to fit your circumstances. What you need is information about your own school and be able to challenge the staff based on that.

Thanks @cabbageking that’s really helpful

My responsibility is to work with the school on both a strategic and an operational basis.

It really, really isn't.
Governors are not operational.

No. cabbageking. Governors do not “dig into who these are and their background story”. This is whollly inappropriate. Governors should not dig around into the backgrounds of children! Ever!

The policy should be written to help all DC strive for good behaviour. Never mind what their background is. Governors absolutely don’t need to dig around into the personal information about some families and children.

Neither do you tell the Head there should be more engagement at lunch - whatever that really means! That sounds operational or refers to a training issue for staff. It’s not a strategic issue for a Governor.

If there is evidence that shows the policy isn’t working, the Head produces it for you. You cannot go around looking at individual teachers and pupils and making judgements. It’s just wrong to do this.

Are you a member of the National Governors Association. They have a series of articlrs called Questions to ask - and one of them is on behaviour.

There is also a lot of information about how to act strategically and not operationally. Its all very useful..

You have completely misread my post. She is Attendance link and as such will meet with the lead to question. Digging deep is about the group of children and identifying and providing for any cultural capital which is an Ofsted requirement as oppose to deep diving.FFT and EEf data and research highlight break time and lunch as often the main area for misbehaviour. Again another
area for Ofsted and how the PE premium is used in lunchtime. SIAMs inspections will also look at how this data is used and seen in action.

Op is behaviour Governor. It still is not the role of a Governor to do what you say. It’s the role of the Head. Where is cultural capital mentioned in the recent Ofsted framework? A school obviously should write a policy with its own pupils in mind. It should know the behaviour issues it faces and address them. That was my original point about not looking to other schools for “what works well”. It’s not your school or your evidence!

Yes, lunchtime can be a time when poor behaviour is exhibited and schools can encourage positive behaviour to overcome this: but....... again it’s a role for the Head! It’s clearly operational.

You are free to disagree however I am more tempted to go with Ofsted requirements.

Its great to have enthusiastic governors prepared to put in the time and effort so i think the schools are lucky to have all of you. The line between operational and strategic is tricky so do talk to your clerk if you are unclear.

What is the requirement in the Ofsted Framework for Governors you are referring to? As opposed to the operational management by the Head? I’ve never had Ofsted query our cultural capital!

Cultural capital is in the new inspection handbook. Pg 43 if the pdf version. Its part of the quality of education which they have changed the look of. Obviously the governors role in this is stategic which you seem to have a good understanding of.

Busy Mum. Questions to monitor school behaviour. Hope they help you. Copied and pasted from the key for Governors
You could ask the school leader:
How do you ensure that school staff are aware of the school's policies relating to behaviour?
How do you ensure the behaviour policy is being applied consistently throughout the school?
How does the school provide support to staff who find behaviour management difficult?
How does the school provide support to pupils who often misbehave?
Does the school keep an up-to-date record of serious breaches of behaviour and sanctions used in response?
Questions for school staff
What action would you take if you suspected a pupil was being bullied?
What actions would you take if you saw a group of children excluding another child in the playground?
Who would you refer an incident in the playground to if you felt it was serious misbehaviour? What procedure would you follow?
What action does the school's behaviour policy say you should take if you see misbehaviour outside of the classroom?
What measures does the school take to prevent misbehaviour outside of the classroom, such as in the playground and corridors?
Questions for pupils
What would your teacher expect you to do if you find a task difficult?
What do teachers do when somebody seriously misbehaves?
Which teacher would you talk to if you think you are being bullied?
Do you think teachers do enough to limit bullying in the school? What do they do?
What would you do if you saw a piece of litter on the floor in school?
When you are in the playground are there rules about what you can and can't do? What are these rules?