Behaviour / Self-regulation

Next review September 2024

Purpose and scope

We achieve our aims by:

• Working in partnership with parents to support their child’s learning
• Creating a safe, respectful and inclusive environment for pupils, staff and parents
• Being positive examples for our pupils at all times

To help us do this, we set clear expectations and guidelines on behaviour for all members of our community. This includes staff (through the Staff Code of Conduct) and parents (through our Conduct Policy).

This policy is designed to support the way in which all members of the school can work together in a supportive way. It aims to promote an environment in which everyone feels happy, safe and secure.

The Relational Behaviour and Self-regulation Policy is a means of promoting relationships where we understand each other,  enabling  everyone  to  work  together  with  the  common  purpose  of  helping  all  pupils  to achieve their best. This policy supports the school community in aiming to allow everyone to work together in an effective and mindful way. The  school  expects  every  member  of  the  school  community  to  behave  in  a  considerate, cooperative and respectful way towards others. Pupils should be treated impartially and with the policy being applied in a consistent and attuned way. It aims to help pupils to grow in a safe and secure environment, and to become positive, responsible and increasingly independent members of the school and the wider community. It is designed to recognise, encourage, and promote positive behaviour, in part, through the ongoing development of pupil emotion regulation.

Supporting pupils to develop the school vision and values

Alongside our school motto, The Frenchwood Family – Together We Grow, and our shared values statement, we have identified six core values that support our learning and personal development.

At Frenchwood Community Primary School, we are a family with shared values. These are at the core of everything we do, and were developed by pupils, parents, staff and governors in Summer Term 2022.

Members of The Frenchwood Family are ASPIRATIONAL; we develop the skills to be successful citizens of a future that we will be responsible for shaping.

By working and learning in a COLLABORATIVE way, we make the best of all our talents, support each other and develop skills for life.

We are HARD-WORKING; there is no short cut to success.  Through our efforts we build up our skills, confidence and can feel proud of our achievements.

We are KIND to ourselves, to each other and to the environment.

We are RESPECTFUL of ourselves, and other people, especially those with the experience to guide us, such as parents or adults in the school and community. 

It is important to members of The Frenchwood Family that we are WELCOMING to new pupils, families, guests and the wider community; whoever they are, wherever they are from, whatever their beliefs or life experiences.

Rationale

At Frenchwood we recognise that behaviour is communicative and often reflects an emotion or feeling. This policy is grounded in the belief that we are able to develop our ability to self-regulate our emotions and behaviour. Adult and child relationships are integral for this to occur.  Through  co-regulation  of  feelings,  children  learn  to  become  more  independent  and develop self-regulation.

Staff Responsibility 

Developing supportive relationships with pupils is the responsibility of all members of staff.  Staff will seek to understand the pupils’ perspective of the situation, strive to understand the child’s feeling whilst maintaining firm but fair limits on behaviour.  Staff will help pupils to develop a range of strategies to manage expectations.

The Role of the Adult

It  is  the  responsibility  of  adults in school  to  develop  empathic  relationships  with  pupils  and  ensure  that school  expectations  are  applied  fairly  in  their  classes.  This is particularly important for those adults working within class. Teachers and teaching assistants expect  their  classes  to  behave  in  a responsible  manner  whenever  the  pupils  are  in  their  care.  They have  high expectations  of  the  pupils  with  regard  to  behaviour,  and  strive  to  ensure  that  all  pupils  work  to  the best  of  their  ability. Our staff are social, emotional, and learning role models for pupils. Additionally,  they  help  pupils  to  co-regulate  to  achieve  high  expectations  when  necessary.   Teachers  treat  all  pupils  in  their  classes  with  respect  and  understanding.

The Role Parents and Families

When parents enrol their child at Frenchwood, they are agreeing to support our policies and the actions of our school. Parents are able to address any queries regarding Emotion Coaching, co- and self-regulation and restorative approaches firstly to the class teacher, then to a member of the Senior Leadership Team. We aim to work with parents to achieve a shared approach and consistent messages between home and school to support their child’s emotional and behaviour development.

Promoting Pupil Engagement and Self-Regulation

School Expectations

We keep our general school rules simple, encouraging our pupils to ‘Be Frenchwood’. This means that we all need to:

• Be Kind
• Be Respectful
• Be Safe

Class Expectations

• Class expectations are generated by the pupils. They are displayed in each classroom and

Should be revisited with the pupils at the beginning of each term and at other times if necessary.

• Class teachers, support staff and pupils devise these at the beginning of the academic year. They are intended to be guidelines of behaviour expectations that both pupils and adults would like to see in their classroom. They should be phrased in a positive manner.
• Expectations are prominently displayed in the classroom
• All classes use reflection sessions as a tool for promoting positive behaviour. These sessions may be combination of games and opportunities for children to respond positively to each other in a safe, friendly environment. They may also provide the class with an opportunity to discuss and reflect upon situations that have been difficult to manage, to then consider ways in which the situation can be managed more successfully in future.

Emotion Coaching

We use Emotion Coaching to support children to understand, regulate and reflect on their

behaviour. We advocate that our parents use this method too and share information about this approach on our website.  We plan for face to face opportunities for training, discussion and training in 2021-2022.

Steps of Emotion Coaching

Emotion Coaching at Frenchwood – remember to follow the steps

1. Being aware of child’s emotions. Show empathy.
2. Label the emotion and validate it. 
3. Set boundaries, remind child of limits on behaviour.
4. Support the child to problem solve

These steps are printed on the back of each staff members ID badge, including the colours for Zones of Regulation.  This acts as an aide memoire for conversations.  The Zones of Regulation are displayed in each of our regulation stations and support the pupils understanding of self-regulation.

Emotion Coaching Provision Map

The relationship classroom staff form with pupils is central to the pupils’ personal social and emotional development. Class teachers are expected to use a range of approaches set out in the provision map to support the development of pupil self-regulation.  Staff work collaboratively with each other and our Emotion Coaching Leaders and follow guidance on how to support the activities in the Regulation Station.

Rewards

Our aim is that our children grow to appreciate that doing the right thing and knowing that you have done your best are intrinsically rewarding. However, extrinsic rewards could include:

• Focused verbal praise and personal feedback on behaviour and engagement
• In class awards as agreed by the class.  This could be Class Dojo points, stickers etc
• Nomination in the values celebration assembly on Friday afternoon
• Calls or messages home

Toys, gifts or sweets are not offered as rewards.

Consequences

Unfortunately there always consequences for poor choices, but we avoid sanctions.  Consequences may include:

• being late out to play due to finishing task or engaging in a restorative chat with the class teacher or another adult;
• undertaking a calm activity or alternative game at break time;
• taking incomplete tasks as homework.

Conversations about possible consequences will always take place discreetly.

Monitoring and reporting behaviour patterns 

Every adult is able to report behaviour using our online monitoring system, CPOMS. This system is monitored by the senior leaders. Patterns, trends, actions and impact are reported to the Governing Board termly. No individual pupils are identified.

Support for adults to ensure consistency

All new staff have an induction meeting which includes the ethos of our school and this policy is outlined and explained along with Emotion Coaching. All staff have received training which is reviewed regularly. Supply or short term staff are inducted into school systems on arrival through the class supply information sheet. Staff get feedback on learning and other forms of pupil encouragement and engagement and motivation in lesson observations and sharing best practice with colleagues. All staff are encouraged to take responsibility for their own development in this area and to seek support/guidance where they feel a need is arising.

Additional Needs

We acknowledge that some pupils’ behaviour may be significantly impacted by family circumstances, social, emotional and mental health, or other learning needs.  The SEND policy gives more detail about how additional needs are supported in the school.

Where an individual persistently needs adult support to regulate behaviour, alternatives will be put in place, e.g. star chart, jigsaw chart.  These alternatives will be personalised to have the best impact for the individual pupil.

When a learner is unable to self-regulate to the extent that they put themselves and others in danger, a risk assessment plan will be created with the input of staff, pupil and families.  As part of our risk management we will attempt to reduce risk by managing:

• The environment
• Our body language
• The way we talk to the children
• The way we act
• And by personalising curriculum and other learning programmes

Positive Handling

Our staff have been trained on positive safer handling with teams assigned across school on the rare occasions that a child needs physical support to keep themselves, others or property safe.  These occasions are recorded and reported to parents the same day.

Suspension and Exclusion

In our school it is rare that school support will not have a positive impact upon pupil behaviour development and regulation. However, the school does and will suspend pupils for persistent abusive or violent behaviour or repeated and escalating low level disruptive behaviour. It is our ethos that we will make every provision for a child to achieve socially and emotionally but if, in spite of this, behaviours are risky, unsafe, violent, and prevent the efficient education of others, suspension or permanent exclusion may be applied.

We abide by the DfE guidance on this and report any exclusions routinely to Lancashire LA following local and national guidance.