Behaviour, Relationships and TPP
"Staff have high expectations and pupils respond positively to clear rules and boundaries." Ofsted Nov 2022
"Staff se the whole-school behaviour strategy consistently and pupils like being rewarded for good behaviour." Ofsted Nov 2022
With Staples Road being such a large primary school, consistency is something we are keen to promote to ensure children are clear about the expectations the school has in all aspects of their development as learners and individuals. Read on to find more on the Restorative Approaches we use.
Like all Essex schools, we are also a Trauma Perceptive Practice [TPP] School where we understand and accept that every behaviour is a form of communication and adults are aware of factors that could affect a child's emotional wellbeing. This has informed our behaviour Policy, to the point where we have named it our Relationships Policy so that it helps us focus on embedding the language of TPP, forming positive relationships and is underpinned by approaches such as Zones of Regulation and Growth Mindset. Please scroll down for links providing more information on these as well as a link to our Relationship Policy.
TPP, behaviour and relationships link strongly with children's mental health and wellbeing. Please also look at further information about the school's offer regarding this here.
Restorative Approaches
All staff at Staples Road are trained to take a restorative approach to resolving conflict between children and preventing harm. It is a highly effective best practice to enable those who have been harmed to convey the impact of the harm to those responsible, and for those responsible to acknowledge this impact and take steps to put it right. The adult mediates and gets a full understanding of what happened and helps the affected children to identify how they felt and what they can do differently next time. With this increased understanding, the child responsible for harm is more likely to learn from the incident and accept the consequence [however serious].
There is good evidence that restorative practice delivers a wide range of benefits for schools. A report published by the Department for Education gave whole-school restorative approaches the highest rating of effectiveness at preventing bullying, with a survey of schools showing 97% rated restorative approaches as effective.
We Reward Positive Behaviours:
1. Through our Values:
The Staples Road values of Resilience, Creativity, Kindness and Honesty, underpin what we expect from every child’s behaviour and attitudes to learning. They sit particularly well with the school’s motto of Strive, Respect, Succeed.
2. Through Celebrating success:
This positive promotion of values and resulting behaviours will be visible to the children and they will be directly rewarded through the Dojo system. For example, they can earn Dojo points by being honest, kind, listening with respect and so on.
Positive behaviour is also celebrated through feedback from class staff, dojo and value certificates and showing work to senior leadership.
How we manage Challenging Behaviours:
When children make mistakes with their behaviour, there has to be a consistent approach to dealing with these to ensure the same consequence is happening in each class and in all year groups. There also has to be the opportunity, where possible, for children to learn from their behaviour. The following approach, coupled with Restorative Justice, aim to ensure this.
Go For Gold:
Every class has a Go For Gold chart which is visible to all children. The chart looks like this:
Every child in the class will start the day with their name tag on Gold. The idea is for children to stay on Gold. If they make the wrong choice, they can be moved out of Gold and on to Silver and then to Bronze if they continue to make the wrong choice. However, the focus will be for them to make the right choice and get back to Gold. Staff will be looking to positively reward the child to help them get back to gold rather than look to moving them to bronze.
If a child ends up on bronze, there will be a consequence. This consequence will be time out at the teacher’s discretion. This will take place in a buddy class in the same year. So for example, a child on Bronze in Y2 Fox, might have time out in Y2 Badger.
In the playground, adults can manage behaviour by giving a child a Bronze ticket for behaviour incidents. They look like this:
This helps staff in the playground give a consequence when needed and also the ticket will be given by the member of staff who dealt with the incident to the class teacher to help communication between the playground and the classroom.
If there is a serious example of behaviour, either in class or in the playground, the Senior Leadership Team [SLT] will be involved. Here is a table to help understand what behaviours lead to silver and bronze, and what will lead to SLT involvement. It is not exhaustive, but helps to give broad understanding of different behaviours and the consequences.
