Supporting and Promoting Children and Young People's Positive Behaviour

Natalie Cullen 19/11/12

Supporting and promoting Children and Young People's positive behaviour
Part 1:
Behaviour Policy
Charles Saer primary school's behaviour policy is for all who are involved in the school. A few examples of who these people are pupils, staff, volunteers and school governors and even parents to name just a few. These rules are equal to all. This ensures all who attend the school know what behaviour is expected of them and what behaviour will not be tolerated. The policy gives a list of aims of what is hoped to be achieved by these rules being followed by everybody. The aim is for good behaviour to make a major contribution in providing a safe, pleasant enviroment for all to work and play in, to build and raise self-esteem, respect, honesty, truth, co-operation, kindness and tolerance of others.
1) This will make the children feel safe as with good and positive behaviour a safe, welcoming, enjoyable enviroment will be built for them to work and play in.
2) By giving the children a safe positive enviroment where good behaviour is shown by all, it teaches the children respect, honesty, truth, co-operation, kindness and tolerance of others. This will make a positive contribution not only to school life but also society and their own futures.
3) By the children learning to behave in a good decent manner and being rewarded for this will also raise their self-esteem and self-worth as well as build their confidence. It teaches them to treat others with respect and kindness and to take other peoples feelings into account, thus helping their social and emotional skills.
4) The children are able to learn the expectations of what is expected of them by rewarding their good behaviour and giving sanctions for any bad behaviour. This also will teach them that they are responsable for their own actions and bad behaviour choices have consequences.

Code of Conduct
The code of conduct is a set of short, simple, realistic rules for everyone to follow. These rules are again for everyone not only the children as it is also important that the adults lead by example and set good standards as they are infact role models for the children. The rules are useful in the day to day of school life. Charles Saer has 5 main rules of conduct:
1) We never shout or run in school
2) We always care for others and their property
3) We are always polite and do as we are told
4) We never fight or throw things
5) We always keep our school tidy
Classes however may have their own rules for inside the classroom as different circumstances may arise for example ages of children, special needs etc. Although they will still reflect the behaviour of which is expected by the school.
1) Children will feel safe by the code of conduct as it cleary states what is expected behaviour and what is not. So if a child experienced any type of bad behaviour towards them they know it will not be accepted and to inform a teacher of the issue.
2) The code of conduct will help the children to make a positive contribution towards helping the school achieve the safe, pleasant enviroment for all to work and play in, to build and raise self-esteem, respect, honesty, truth, co-operation, kindness and tolerance of others.
3) By the children learning to behave in a good decent manner and being rewarded for this will also raise their self-esteem and self-worth as well as build their confidence. It teaches them to treat others with respect and kindness and to take other peoples feelings into account, thus helping their social and emotional skills. Also helping them to become well rounded members of society.
4) It helps the children to see rules are there to be followed and what is expected as good behaviour and what is unacceptable behaviour giving them expectations and limits.

Rewards and Sanctions
Rewards and Sanctions are basically ways of teaching the children when they have shown good behaviour when a reward is then given or bad behaviour when a sanction is given and will be seen to be fair. This will emphasise the diffrence between good and bad behaviour.
Rewards at Charles Saer it is important to recognise and encourage good behaviour with some types of rewards such as: signs of approval, praise and encouragement, displays of work, comments in homework books, class points which can be banked for negotiated class treats, student of the week certificates and medals, stickers and badges, golden book ticket, silver awards, special mention in assembly, postcard/phonecall home. This way the childs confidence and self worth is boosted and they are more likely to keep up the good behaviour.
Sanctions however when a child has shown bad behaviour a sanction must be given to that child to teach them it is not acceptable how they have behaved. Some types of sanctions that we use at Charles Saer are: eye contact (a mean look!), adult disapproval, time out chair or isolation table in the classroom, child will be given a post it which the teacher will write e.g. 5minutes in Mrs Smiths class and child will go to that class for given time, unacceptable behaviour will be discussed with child after lesson and not during, kept in at play time, serious misbehaviour will lead to involvment of the head teacher and maybe parents will also be asked to come in to school.
1) Children will be made to feel safe by gaining rewards for their good behaviour as it will give them a sense of achievment, recognition and self worth.
2) Children will want to make a positive contribution into the school by ensuring they show good behaviour and try their best at all times to gain the rewards on offer for any good behaviour as this gives them a great feeling of doing well and a sense of accomplishment.
3) The reward system helps develop social and emotional skills as by the children following the simple rules of respect, honesty, truth, co-operation, kindness and tolerance of others, this also gives them the basics for good behaviour and being rewarded for that also helps them develop self esteem, self worth, confidence in themselves.
4) Rewards and Sanctions help children to understand when expectations are met they are rewarded and praised. When these are not met there is consequences to their actions, teaching them to take responsiblity and that there are limits to which bad behaviour will not be accepted.

Dealing with conflict and Inappropriate behaviour
At Charles Saer school if a pupil is still presenting challenging behaviour after numerous attempts to try and intervene e.g. rewards, sanctions etc then there are some steps the staff will take to take the matter further. 1) A childs parents will be contacted and asked to come in to discuss the situation
2) the next step if still no improvement would be to put the child on a report where his behaviour is monitored throughout the day and good and bad behaviour is recorded, the SENCO should be informed and given copies, 3) If after 4 weeks no improvement the the child should be placed on the SEN register and parents and authorities will discuss the issue. There are 3 stages and if no improvement then child will be referred to pupil referral services .
Of course this type of continuing challenging behaviour is very unlikely to occur so serverly. More often than not a conflict or any sort of inappropriate behaviour a pupil displays that is serious can be resolved quickly by informing the parents and the head and class teacher being involved and some sort of plan and agreement as to what the course of action should be.
1) The other children at the school would feel safe knowing that when another child is behaving badly to a serious extent the staff are seen to be taking action against the bad behaviour and taking the matter very seriously, keeping to the their promise in the behaviour policy of ensuring a safe and enjoyable enviroment.
2) If inappropriate behaviour is seen to be dealt with seriously then the other children are more likely to make a positive contribution by showing good behaviour and abidding to the rules of the school.
3) The child may be behaving inappropriatley due to their home life, so by first displaying bad behaviour and getting into trouble. They may then learn how to behave in a better way with the help of the staff which would help to develop that childs social and emotional skills that they probably wouldnt have learnt at home.
4) Rules and structure help children to understand what is accecptable behaviour and what is not. There has to be boundaries or the children wont be aware of what the limits are and will just keep seeing how far they can go.

Anti-Bullying
Bullying can be in the form of indirect, physical, verbal or cyber. Common forms of bullying are racial, sexuality, disability etc. Bullying has zero tolerance and will dealt with extreme seriousness. Once the staff have been informed and it is brought to their attention that bullying is taking place the head teacher will interview all concerned and will record the incident, class teachers and parents will be informed and if serious enough police will also be contacted. Sanctions such as warnings, detention, even exclusion will be given. The victim will recieve support to be able to talk about it. Monitoring of the situation will continue until the head feels it is no longer a threat.
1) Children no doubt feel a lot more supported and safer knowing there is action they can take if they are being bullied in or out of school.
2) Children can make a positive contribution by their behaviour by acting in kind and caring way to one another and learning to accept everyone and their diffrences.
3) By teaching children to respect, have honesty, tell the truth, have co-operation, show kindness and to have tolerance of others, that there are people who are different in the world. We give them them knowledge to understand and be accepting of diffrences helping to develop their social and emotional skills
4) Understanding the expectations n limits of bullying is to always treat people kindly and the way you'd expect to be treated by others and to know bullying is an extremley serious matter and will be dealt with serverly.

Attendance
Charles Saer's Attendance policy is very similar to the behaviour policy, in that it aims to provide a welcoming and caring enviroment so the pupils can recieve a full time education to reach their full potential, there are incentives and rewards given to acknowledge the efforts of high attendance. Giving the pupils a sense of achievment and self worth. There is also rules to be followed, such as to be on time when school starts, what procedures to follow if off sick or have appointments etc, if too many absences then school will have to ask a family support to becoming involved. So like the behaviour policy there are rewards for good attendance n sanctions for bad attendance.
1) The children will feel safe by the attendance policy as yet again its setting out rules and structure very clearly. Which will make the children reassured knowing its the same rules, same expections, no confussion or uncertainty.
2) The children can make a positive contribution by keeping up a good attendance and geting to school on time.
3) By keeping a good attendance this will develop their social and emotional skills because they will be in school socializing with other children and learning but also theyll be developing a sense of achievement, self worth. If awards are given this will highten their self esteem. It will also benefit them in later life when they have jobs.
4) The policy helps lay the expectations and limits out clearly of what the school expects to be good attendance and what will limit that high attendance rate they are hoping for.

Part 2:
It is benefical to encourage and reward positive behaviour as it shows the child that you have acknowledged their behaviour and paid attention to the effort made by them. It also gives them a feeling of pride and happyness to have their behaviour praised, even if the reward is just a smile or a simple "well done I'm really proud of you". Rewarding and encouraging good behaviour gives the child confidence, self-esteem, self-worth, all the important things a person needs to become a self efficent adult in the future and make them feel like they have a purpose.