Best behaviour

Out on the campaign trail during a speech in Kirklees ahead of the 2010 general election, David Cameron vowed to instil discipline and rigour back into the education system. “I want to put the teachers back in charge in our classrooms, I want the head teachers to feel they are captain of their own ship,” he proclaimed.

More than two years on, tackling behaviour in the classroom has certainly been a strong focus for this government.

As Prime Minister, Cameron has seen his pledge enacted in legislation under the Education Act 2011. The government touts the act as a way of handing control back to teachers – extending their powers to search and detain pupils; to give no-notice after-school detentions; and disempowering exclusion appeals panels so they can no longer compel school heads to readmit excluded pupils.

Guidance on behaviour in schools was also simplified last July, slimmed down from more than 600 pages to 52, while the new Ofsted inspection framework places more emphasis on behaviour.

But given that the measures are meant to improve teachers’ ability to instil discipline, are the changes welcomed by staff?
Alison Ryan, education policy adviser at the Association for Teachers and Lecturers, says: “Education is a partnership, and we don’t feel these measures are proportionate or thoughtful or evidence-based.

“This government’s policy seems to spring from an old-fashioned view, where pupils are empty vessels who have to be filled with knowledge, sit there and behave, and don’t have a part in setting their own boundaries.”

In fact, education unions are pretty much unanimous that many of the discipline measures brought in by the new legislation are at best unnecessary and at worst overkill – in effect wheeling out the nuclear arsenal to deal with a low-level skirmish.

Teachers do, however, admit that indiscipline is an issue. Seventy-four per cent of teachers felt there was a behaviour problem in schools, according to a recent survey by teaching union NASUWT – although only 34 per cent said there was a problem in their own school.

Minor misbehaviours
But the most frequent forms of misbehaviour cited by teachers were chatting in class, failure to complete work, failure to follow school rules and constant backchat – not issues that warrant extended search and exclusion powers.

In fact, 84 per cent of teachers believed the extended search powers will not help them tackle poor behaviour, while the profession was split on powers to give no-notice after-school detentions – 55 per cent thought this will not be helpful.

NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates says: “This government has a split personality. On the one hand, it says it does not want to regulate schools, then it regulates on the wrong thing.” She says a policy banning mobile phones in classrooms, for example, would be more helpful.

Ian Toone, senior professional officer at teaching union Voice, says the legislation and the statutory guidance that has followed has “confused an already confusing situation”, with misleading media coverage and the potentially patchy adoption of the legislation by schools, leaving teachers unsure of what powers they actually have.

“Even if you pass legislation that says you can search and detain pupils, that still needs to be worked out in practice in individual schools,” he says. “If a pupil ends up in some kind of danger – for example travelling home after an after-school detention – the school has to take some responsibility for that.”

But Education Secretary Michael Gove believes that without the government’s intervention, quality of teaching will suffer. When announcing the revised guidance for schools in April last year, he said: “Teachers can’t teach effectively and pupils can’t learn if schools can’t keep order. These changes will give teachers confidence that they can remove disruptive pupils and search children where necessary.”

He charged Charlie Taylor, head teacher at a special school for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties in Hillingdon, with the task of making recommendations on how behaviour in schools can be improved.

Taylor’s report was published last month. It included proposals for head teachers to increase the fines on parents whose children are persistent truants and dock child benefit if they fail to pay.

But many organisations have warned that children would be punished for the circumstances of their families. Barnardo’s chief executive Anne-Marie Carrie says: “When government looks at the recommendations of Charlie Taylor’s report, it needs to be mindful of getting the balance right between enforcing sanctions on parents, and supporting families to tackle the root causes of non-attendance.”

Trust and respect
As well as concerns that the measures implemented by government will fail to tackle the root causes of bad behaviour, teachers fear that in some cases it could actually exacerbate the problem.

ATL’s Ryan says: “Teachers and support staff have to have particular relationships with pupils, and searching will undermine any relationship of trust and respect, alienate pupils and parents, and could precipitate challenging confrontation.”

Teacher training, says Ryan, should cover child development and mental health issues – both in initial training and continuous professional development – so that schools can recognise and address the root causes of bad behaviour.

This is something that children’s commissioner for England Maggie Atkinson, also supports. “There are children who have their physical safety threatened by adults outside school all the time,” she says. “The last thing teachers want is to make it worse or enter into a skirmish culture. Most teachers recognise bad behaviour is a symptom of something going on in a child’s life.”

While sometimes necessary as a last resort, sanctions do tend to disproportionately affect children with more complex problems in their life.
 
In her recent report into school exclusions, They Never Give Up On You, Atkinson found that certain groups of children were significantly more likely to be excluded, including boys, children from particular ethnic groups, children with special educational needs (SEN) and children eligible for free school meals. A child who ticks all of these boxes is 168 times more likely to be excluded from school than a child who ticks none.

And children who are permanently excluded often fail to re-engage with education, leaving them without qualifications and often at a serious disadvantage. Given that exclusions tend to lead to such poor outcomes, the Education Act’s removal of the right of pupils and parents to appeal against unfair exclusions and see their child readmitted to a school would appear to be a step in the wrong direction.

Atkinson’s report calls for this change to be reversed. “We agree with the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights that the changes in this act are unlikely to comply with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights [the right to a fair and public hearing],” she says.

There are already disincentives for schools to exclude pupils – inspections, for example, will take into account the number of exclusions when grading a school. But the government is piloting a scheme where schools retain responsibility (and funding) for the education of excluded pupils, giving schools more accountability for the future education of these children.

This move has been welcomed as a way of keeping disadvantaged children in the school system, if not in the school building. The 300 schools involved in the pilot, which began in September 2011, commission alternative provision to meet the needs of their excluded pupils and oversee its effectiveness. “This builds on best practice already in place,” says Atkinson. “There are already fantastic arrangements where money that previously went to pupil referral units (PRUs) is now in the system, and PRUs are part of the community of provision.”

Despite these disincentives to exclude, there are fears that increased sanctions will continue to disproportionately affect vulnerable children, particularly those with special educational needs.

Atkinson’s report went some way to debunking the myth that some outstanding schools exclude badly behaved pupils in order to retain their standing, finding instead that poorly ranked schools tend to have the most exclusions. However, increased competition between schools, performance league tables and heightened expectations from school inspections have led to fears that schools may “pre-exclude” children who might have more challenging behaviour.

“The recent SEN green paper talks about parents and children’s rights to apply to any school including academies and free schools. But there is a strong caveat that a school can refuse to accept a pupil if this would interfere with the education of others,” says Ryan.

“A school that might want to avoid the potential impact on league tables can make the argument this will impact on education of those already there, so they won’t accept this pupil. Some schools then end up with a much greater proportion of children with some kind of challenging condition, which, if they are not equipped to deal with, could show itself in behaviour.”

Government sanctions
The removal of the requirement to give a parent or carer 24 hours written notice before a child is required to attend detention outside normal school hours could also impact on vulnerable children and young people, according to the Association of Educational Psychologists.

In a statement submitted to the government during the passage of the Education Bill, it said: “Care is needed in the practical application of these enhanced powers. This is especially important for children with SEN, especially those whose needs have not been formally identified or diagnosed, or those with caring responsibilities. In many cases, there are underlying developmental and learning conditions that have an impact on behaviour and these should always be considered when implementing sanctions as now proposed by the legislation.”

So why has the government introduced these sanctions?

Some believe the answer may well come down to money. “Effective processes for dealing with behaviour can seem expensive, especially ones that involve external specialists, and local authorities have had their resources  decimated,” says Ryan. “The government wants to improve behaviour but could well have an eye to the cuts, so has got to go with a short, sharp, shock approach.”

What really makes a difference, say schools, is support staff. Teaching assistants, home and school liaison officers and other support staff can work on delivering many of the elements of successful behaviour programmes, freeing up teachers to teach. But when financial constraints kick in, and schools cannot make teachers redundant, support staff are the ones that tend to face the chop, or at least see their hours reduced.

Atkinson believes schools are doing their best to retain support staff and cites the pupil premium funding targeted at disadvantaged pupils, as a method of doing so. But Voice’s Ian Toone does not think this is enough. “Schools are free to use the pupil premium for whatever they choose, and it is not really new money,” he says. “For many schools, the premium just makes up for what is lost in general funding.”

Additional staff are vital, for example, in the delivery of nurture groups – small, structured teaching groups for pupils showing signs of behavioural, social or emotional difficulties. Teachers and parents pick up the strategies used in the groups as the children transfer back into the full-time classroom. A 2011 Ofsted report, which examined nurture groups in 29 schools, found that parents were very positive about the practice.

“Many said they had seen their children’s behaviour transform over time,” the report concluded. “They spoke of their children being calmer, happier and more confident, both at home and school.” The groups, however, require significant investment either from local authorities or the school’s own budget.

When asked about the causes of pupil indiscipline, respondents to NASUWT’s survey cited lack of parental support as the principal factor. Schools across the country are building relationships with parents through coffee mornings, “lads and dads” events, parenting groups and more, aiming to gain the support of parents and challenge any misconceptions they may have about school life. Again, staff such as home and school liaison officers are vital in building these relationships.

Prettygate Infant School in Essex has a number of reward schemes to incentivise good behaviour, including the “green badge scheme”, which is targeted at the consistently well-behaved children who are sometimes overlooked. Stamps are earned for a full week of good behaviour, and children who manage to gain 10 – a difficult task – are ceremoniously presented with a badge, while 30 stamps earns a special assembly to which parents are invited. Other schools use modern technology to operate web-based or card-based reward schemes, such as Bishopshalt School in Middlesex, which allows pupils to earn points and spend them on a range of approved goods online.

It is clear that schools across the country are already working successfully with children with challenging behaviour, in order to de-escalate situations and tackle that behaviour at its root before punitive measures have to be implemented.

But education staff and children’s organisations remain keenly aware of the fact that badly behaved children are often also the most vulnerable. “The notion that the classroom is a war zone is a bit of a stereotype,” says Atkinson. “These are places where human civilisation is lived out in miniature.”


Improving behaviour at Foredyke Primary School in Hull

When Hull’s Foredyke Primary School was placed into special measures 15 months ago, poor pupil behaviour was a major issue. The school, which has an above average number of pupils on free school meals and with special educational needs, had just partnered with successful Thanet Primary School in an attempt to share good practice.

Thanet head Elaine Butler, who became executive head of the two-school federation, immediately began implementing measures to improve behaviour such as fighting among pupils, including a “zero tolerance” policy. There were a number of fixed-term exclusions and staff were trained to ensure consistent application of school rules, including those surrounding uniform.

“This was absolutely necessary due to the behaviour of the pupils, which I believe had become a safeguarding issue,” explains Butler. “It sounds very harsh, but it was more about high expectations and believing that we can do better.” 

The school also adopted a number of more proactive measures, working with children and their families. Butler says the employment of an emotional wellbeing worker was a major factor in changing behaviour.

The worker runs a green card system in which children with a history of misbehaving have to earn their right to enjoy school treats such as discos. “It is a fluid system, children come on and off it – some children ask to stay on it as it helps them to control their behaviour,” says Butler.

Restorative practices were also introduced, in which children think about what they have done wrong and how they can make it right. “This is about building community and giving everyone a sense of belonging, as much as it is about recognising what they have done wrong and repairing the harm,” Butler says. “It isn’t a ‘soft’ option though – it’s a very powerful way of helping children take responsibility for their actions and recognising the effect this has on others, of feeling shame and remorse for what they have done.”

A local pupil referral unit supported the school by observing staff and pupils in action and suggesting ways to improve behaviour. The voices of pupils is also important. “We consult and listen to their views and ask their opinions about things,” says Butler.

The school now shares Thanet school’s family links worker for one day a week. Not all parents were keen on the changes; some even moved their children.

But the school has worked hard to engage parents with the new agenda and raise their expectations through informal chats, newsletters, coffee mornings and events including a pamper afternoon held for mums and a parent and pupil junk modelling challenge.

All this work paid off in April when the school was brought out of special measures and rated as “good” by Ofsted.

As well as praising the improvements on teaching and curriculum, the latest inspection report stated: “The support and care strategies that have been put in place for pupils, and their families when needed, have dramatically transformed pupils’ behaviour and attendance.”


Government measures