KEEP STUDENTS SAFE AT SHOREFIELDS

Promoting Good Behaviour

Shorefields Technology College believes that the basic needs of children should be met in every classroom and as such, good discipline should prevail.

Good discipline within classrooms, on corridors, on the playing fields and in the immediate vicinity of the school is the cornerstone of the school’s vision to move from Good to Great.

Our aim is to support students in accepting responsibility for every aspect of their education. Our students are expected to behave in an appropriate manner to allow their teachers to teach effectively and thus, other students to learn to their maximum.
Everyone at Shorefields will feel safe, secure, fulfilled and challenged to maximise their potential. Everyone will have a clear sense of worth and place in our society.

In successful lessons students are

• clear about what is to be learned, how it fits in with what they know already and the structure of the lesson
• actively engaged in their learning
• able to work independently when required to do so
• able to understand expectations, including those regarding behaviour and attendance
• able to use assessment to help them to improve
• confident that they can succeed because the right conditions for learning prevail

High expectations are more likely to be achieved if teachers set and promote objectives for behaviour and attendance, as they do for academic work. To achieve high expectations, it is important that students understand and are supported in the acquisition of behaviour skills that support learning.

The outcome from this should be a noticeable reduction in persistent low-level disruption in the classroom, leading to better levels of teaching and learning, and improved behaviour and attendance climate for school staff and students.

There are numerous awards and rewards available to Shorefields’ students and these are given out during lessons, in weekly assemblies and at specific rewards assemblies, including the end of year graduation ceremony.

Such awards include

• Informative marking and recognition of good work
• Verbal praise from teachers, acknowledging progress/improvement
• Postcards/texts/letters home
• Attendance & Punctuality awards in assemblies
• Inclusion in Presentation Evenings and Graduation ceremonies
• Referral to SMT
• Referral to Governors for attainment
• School trips/visits

Where students need extra support in order to make progress either academically or with regard to behaviour, there are several support strategies that can be put in place. Those that are most successful are generally done in partnership with parents/carers

Available support strategies at Shorefields include

• In-class monitoring
• Working one to one with a Pastoral Support Worker
• Collaborative work with parent/carer
• Spending time with Pastoral support staff in our Early Intervention Unit
• Individual and personalised target sheets
• Referral to Governors for recognition of improvement
• Referral to our Reintegration Unit

Sometimes, however, in spite of our best efforts, students continue to make the wrong choices and fail to respond to support.

At Shorefields we try to reduce challenging behaviour through

• Social skills training
• Curriculum adaptation
• Proactive classroom management
• Individual Behaviour Plans
• Working closely with parents
• Early Intervention
• Challenging the negative thoughts of some children by changing, ‘I can’t do it!’ into ‘I can’t do it YET.’

The following is a guide for teachers and parents/carers, taken from the latest DCSF guidance on promoting good behaviour and teachers’ power to discipline (2009):

The Education and Inspections Act 2006 included, for the first time, a specific power for teachers to discipline students – for breaking a school rule, failure to follow instructions or other unacceptable behaviour. It applies at any time a student is in school or elsewhere under the charge of a teacher, including where a student
is participating in an educational visit. The power also applies to other staff with responsibilities for controlling students, such as teaching assistants.

Schools’ discipline and behaviour policies are able to allow teachers to regulate the conduct of students when they are off school premises and not under the control of
school staff. So, for example, a teacher who encounters students behaving in an unacceptably rowdy manner on their journeys to and from school, is allowed to request that they stop behaving in this way. The teacher can then discipline those students, as appropriate, on their return to school.

Teachers have powers both to encourage good and punish poor behaviour. Every school should have an agreed behaviour policy which should provide staff with a framework for managing student behaviour, including the use of rewards and sanctions.

Reasonable punishments you might use include, for example:

• one-to-one admonishment
• removal from the group (in class)
• withdrawal from a particular lesson or peer group
• withdrawal of access to the school IT system
• withdrawal of participation in a school trip or sports event that is not an essential part of the curriculum
• withdrawal of break or lunch-time privileges
• carrying out a useful task in the school
• detention (see below)
• confiscation

Detention

Any student under 18 can be put in detention if this is part of a school’s behaviour policy. Parents need to be given 24 hours notice if the detention is outside normal school hours, for safety reasons. They can let you know if this will cause the family a particular problem, but cannot over-rule the school’s decision.