Behaviour & Anti Bullying Policy

Core Purpose Statement

  • It is the right of every child to feel safe and secure at school and have every opportunity to enjoy learning without distraction from others.
  • It is the right of every teacher and adult to be able to teach without obstruction and to work in a mutually respectful and professional environment.
  • It is the right of every parent to know that their child is safe, treated fairly and will be supported to develop the skills to enable them to engage positively in our communities.

At AQ Khan Schools we:

  • Teach responsible behaviour to our students using a range of strategies.
  • Raise student self esteem and awareness of wider community and societal expectations of good manners and personal conduct.
  • Be explicit about what adults and students in the school can expect from each other.
  • Integrate behaviour management into all areas of school life through a structured and consistently applied hierarchy of praise and sanction.
  • Ensure that our school communities can work free from intimidation and bullying by acting robustly when issues arise.

Aims of AQ Khan Schools

  • To provide the highest standards of education through effective teaching and learning for all students with a broad, balanced and personalised curriculum.
  • To provide equal opportunity for everyone at our school regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, special educational needs, religion, culture or ability.
  • To encourage and develop independent thinking, life long learning, self-esteem and confidence, alongside respect and support for others.
  • To develop the role and understanding of staff and students of self-responsibility as well as the confidence to recognise behaviours which are not acceptable and to challenge them e.g. their role as a bystander
  • Provide a safe, caring, happy and stimulating atmosphere within an aesthetically pleasing environment.
  • To encourage an educational partnership between children, staff, parents/carers and Directors and to promote links with the wider community.
  • To further encourage teamwork amongst the staff.
  • To create a school ethos that encourages children to disclose bullying incidents.
  • To raise awareness in the school community of what bullying is and that bullying is unacceptable behaviour.
  • To support those who are affected by bullying behaviour and for those involved in bullying behaviour.

Core strategies for ensuring outstanding behaviour

This document outlines a hierarchy that will ensure the appropriate degree of seriousness is attached to incidents through the fair and consistent use of both the sanction and the staff members who are involved.

All members of our school community have a responsibility to proactively ensure adherence to whole school behaviour expectations. To ignore an incident is to condone it.

 Staff Responsibilities

Staff ensure positive learning behaviour through:

 Implementation of best practice in learning and teaching:

  • Quality first teaching (inclusive, fun & inspiring) supported by outstanding planning and ongoing assessment that informs planning as well as lessons which are in process.
  • Marking which provides feedback, achievable targets that encourage positive learning and ‘can do’ attitudes as well as marking that elicits a response and dialogue between teacher and student.
  • Avoiding an over reliance on ‘time out’ in other classrooms as this admits a teachers inability to cope, undermines their authority, severely restricts learning opportunities and quick re-integration and can cause greater disruption to other classes. A class teacher needs to assert initial authority over a situation, setting behaviour expectations to other children. The exceptions to this are Stage 3 behaviours (Sanctions).

By building positive relationships:

  • Rewards – e.g. actively noticing good behaviourlining up points leading to golden time, class table points/marbles, golden star award, positive messages to parents.
  • Good relationships with parents by being available in the playground at the start & end of the day, taking concerns seriously and by informing them of good behaviour and learning success as well as behaviour which is a concern.
  • Remembering a teachers own role in the behaviour of a class & being aware of the reason that may lie behind certain behaviours e.g. through inappropriate activity, lack of challenge, or timetabling, teacher tiredness, excitement over planned events, breaks in routine, accessibility of resources, building positive & quality relationships,
  • Balance of reward & sanction – not punishing a whole class for the actions of individuals and knowing that sometimes telling off is enough.
  • Knowing the children as individuals. This means where they are in their learning, how they learn, what sort of people they are, and the best way to support them encouraging confidence, self-esteem and positive relationships with other children and adults.
  • By recording significant contact with parents and carers using the agreed school record keeping systems

By modelling and teaching learning behaviours

  • Helping children become independent and active learners, by listening and acting on their knowledge and understanding, encouraging them to think for themselves, develop their own opinions, and to organise their own time and resources effectively, with support from the teacher.
  • By refusing to engage in shouting matches and knowing that an extremely agitated or angry child will not listen until they have calmed down.
  • Knowing that humour can be an extremely powerful behaviour management tool.
  • Adults giving explicit direction and being clear with reasons for actions and consequences for actions g. ‘I have moved you because you were disturbing other children and if you continue to talk I will sit you on your own’
  • By not engaging children in protracted discussion about incidents but simplifying them in relation to school expectations g. ‘I understand that you are upset but you are disturbing the learning of other children and I cannot allow you to do that’ / ‘You kicked someone and even though you were provoked it is still unacceptable’
  • To clearly set the expectation that respect means students not raising their voice at you or answering back.
  • By utilising a variety of positive redirection techniques e.g. choice direction e.g. ‘You can either complete this work now or you can complete it at playtime, it is your choice.’
  • Using role play/drama and circle time to help children develop strategies to deal with situations and giving the child strategies to deal with a situation if it should arise again
  • By taking student concerns seriously and applying the schools policy on bullying fairly and with an awareness that bullying occurs in every school and is a hindrance to a positive learning climate for both students and adults.

By ensuring consistency of expectation from all stakeholders

  • Referring to school rules displayed in common areas
  • All adults being proactive in ensuring that children from Nursery to Year 6 are expected to enter and leave assembly and to walk around the school silently in single file with hands by their sides to avoid touching others
  • Ensuring that when a sanction is used it is fair and appropriate for the action
  • Negotiating class rules with the children at the beginning of a school year and displaying these in the classroom. These should take the form of both the adult’s expectations of students and the student’s expectation of the adults in their class
  • Actively discouraging children from leaving the classroom to use the toilet during lesson times and use escorts for the least trustworthy to ensure learning time is maximised.
  • By listening but being clear that your decision is final regardless of whether it is perceived as right or wrong
  • By active implementation of the systems and procedures outlined in this policy

 The Parents’/Carers’ Responsibilities

  • For students to achieve to their full potential it is essential that there are links and clear communications between home and school. Central to this is the understanding that teachers, parents and carers all want their children to succeed and be safe and happy within school.

 Parents can support their child to adhere to the expectations of the school community by:

  • Explaining to your child what school is for: a place for learning where he/she will be living with other people and that means sharing – books, equipment, adult attention and co-operating with others.
  • Helping your child with his/her learning: This means showing an interest in what your child has done at school, sharing reading books, ensuring homework is completed, looking after and returning borrowed books or resources (books are expensive and we may have to charge to replace damaged or lost books) and attending parents’ meetings and open evenings to discuss your child’s progress with the class teacher.
  • Supporting the school. Any worries or concerns should be shared first with the class teacher. It is not always appropriate to voice your concerns in front of your child or other children in a public place. Make an appointment. We are always willing to listen and come to a shared understanding.

Acting on messages from the school: This may mean praising your child at home for actions at school or discussion and sanctions at home to support those imposed at school as well as understanding that undermining your child’s teacher in front of your child will create further situations that may be very difficult to repair.

  • Understanding that the school can act to prevent and stop bullying. Bullying takes many different forms and the school will always take a balanced view and listen to all sides of a story before acting.
  • By not attempting to deal with issues yourself through conversations with children or other parents in the playground.
  • Understanding that children also learn from watching the behaviour and actions of their parents and siblings: If the parent / carer criticises the school or acts in an antisocial way, the child will do the same, and this will affect his/her learning. Parents / carers who do not co-operate reasonably with school staff or who become abusive will be asked to leave the school premises and will not be allowed back until the situation has been resolved.
  • Sending your child to school on time: Every day. If he/she is not well enough to come make sure that he/she returns at the earliest opportunity
  • Sending your child to school ready to learn: Children to need concentrate to learn, and therefore need to be fit and well, to have had enough sleep, to have eaten, and to be suitably dressed.
  • Communicating with the school any special medical needs: Or any special circumstances at home that may affect your child’s learning.

 Please note: during the school day all parents, carers and visitors must report to the school office before contacting any other member of the staff or children. It is not acceptable for parents to approach staff when they are teaching. Equally, it is inappropriate for parents to approach support staff directly about their child’s behaviour without first consulting the class teacher, Deputy or Head teacher. Additionally, it is inappropriate for parents to canvass and seek the views of other parents in relation to behaviour issues specific to their child.

The Child’s Responsibilities

The expectations and rules of the school are displayed throughout the school and in the playground. These rules are regularly explained and discussed with children.

The core expectation of behaviours we require from in and out of the classroom are:

  • Respecting myself, other people and our school property.
  • Being a friend to myself and others.
  • Listening to adults and doing the right thing the first time.
  • Taking responsibility for my actions and my learning.
  • Looking smart. Acting smart. Being smart.

Reward Systems & Support Mechanisms

The most effective form of behaviour management is one, which notices where good behaviour is occurring and promotes it.

At AQ Khan Schools we actively praise behaviours which are supportive of positive learning climate. Students have a weekly whole school assembly where the behaviour and hard work of a child from each class are celebrated and a ‘golden award card’ is sent home to their parents. There is also a second assembly exploring the social and emotional aspects of learning. Children are given roles and responsibilities such as peer mediating, peer reading, school council membership and an on-going learning dialogue provided within our marking policy and monitoring processes to support a growing sense of self responsibility.

Within each classroom there is an expectation that there will be reward systems related to individual, group and whole class achievements including stickers, positive contact with parents, achievement charts, extra playtime, stay on green rewards and golden time.

In order to support children who experience difficulty in adopting successful learning behaviours the school uses a range of support strategies. The most important aspect of this is to have full parental support in the wider aims and ethos of the school in correcting behaviour, which is to the learning detriment of students.

Other such strategies include:

  • A system for logging incidents which allows for an analysis and tracking of issues and the identification of students at risk of exclusion, as well as any patterns of bullying.
  • Weekly/Daily behaviour reports with individual targets that are monitored by senior members of staff and communicated home
  • Pastoral Support Programmes for children who are identified to be at risk of exclusion including the involvement of external agencies and our school learning mentor
  • Social skills groups for children who present particular difficulties.
  • Restorative justice meetings for students facilitated by the Learning Mentor/ Senior Member of staff
  • Re-integration meetings with students returning from exclusion
  • Organised playground activities with adult led and supervised team games as well as resourced quiet areas
  • Alternative play opportunities at lunchtime for children who find the long period difficult.
  • Engaging with outside agencies for support.

Sanctions

Staff members have the right to confiscate items such as jewellery, mobile phones, toys and sweets and keep them in a safe place until the end of the day/school term/until collected by a parent or carer. The wearing of inappropriate clothing or shoes as outlined in the School dress codes will result in a letter home, or the child being sent home with the parent to change unless previous arrangements have been made. Repeated uniform violations will require the involvement of the Head teacher.

Repeated absence or lateness as recorded by school systems will trigger interventions by the Head Teacher.

All staff has an active responsibility to intervene at any point or any stage where behaviour is deemed to be inappropriate. The Head teacher can undertake exclusions.

Internal Exclusion requires a student to be excluded from all contact with classmates during the school day including break times & assemblies and to be supervised with the parent or carer formally informed of actions.

External Exclusion will only be used as a serious sanction where other strategies have failed or in response to a breach of discipline that is serious enough to put student’s learning opportunities at risk, and/or the health and safety of other students or staff.

Behaviour Outside of School

The School expect students to represent the school positively in the local community and whilst on school trips. Our behaviour code applies to off site trips and visits. For behaviour outside of school but not on school business, sanctions will apply if there is a clear link between that behaviour and damage to the reputation of the school or maintaining good behaviour and discipline amongst the student body as a whole.

Sexualised Behaviour

Whilst it is normal for children to exhibit curiosity with regards their own bodies and physical development it is essential that clear boundaries are set to protect all children from abuse and to reflect cultural and societal expectations.

If a child discloses inappropriate serious sexual behaviour involving other children or adults it is the legal duty of the adult to inform the designated child protection teacher immediately.