Updated January 2019
At Mabel Prichard School the children and adults respect, care for, understand and tolerate all others.
Aims
1. To ensure the whole school community including pupils, staff, governors, parents/carers and families share common values.
2. To ensure the whole community including pupils, staff, governors, parents/carers and families feel valued, safe, respected and heard.
3. To enable all children to reach their full potential.
4. To create a positive learning environment to enable the work of the school to be purposeful and meaningful.
5. To ensure the whole school community are committed to life-long learning as a means of promoting self worth and self-esteem.
6. To ensure all pupils and staff are treated fairly and equally irrespective of gender, race, religion, culture and ability.
7. To ensure the school to works closely with the wider community including local schools, places of worship and employers to enable students to apply good behavioural strategies in life settings.
Rights and Responsibilities
Staff, Governors and pupils have both the right and the responsibility to:-
· respect each other
· act in a fair and honest manner
· have care and consideration for others
· treat everyone equally irrespective of their colour, race, religion, culture and ability
· listen to each other and to be heard
· feel safe and have regard to the emotional and physical well-being of others
· preserve the dignity of the individual in all circumstances
Wherever possible pupils are expected to:-
· respect each other’s right to learn and be in an atmosphere conducive to learning
· have the responsibility to contribute towards a positive atmosphere for learning
Code of Conduct
Wherever possible all children and staff/visitors are encouraged to:-
· look after their own belongings and those of others
· be respectful of each other’s working and personal space
· move round the school with thought for others
· treat others as you would want to be treated yourself
· listen and attend to other people’s needs in all respects of school life
· knock before entering a room
· wherever possible, all children staff and governors are encouraged to set a good example when off the school site to enhance the school’s reputation
Strategies to promote and support positive behaviours
Mabel Prichard School aims to recognise and develop the appropriate behaviour of pupils, to encourage them to play a responsible role within the school and wider community by:-
· the whole school following a Values Education programme.
· creating a school council made up of staff and student representatives from all classes
· acknowledging positive behaviour e.g. specific positive reinforcement, celebrating achievement in assemblies, the newsletter and in class, recognising effort.
· minimising attention given to bad behaviour
· encouraging staff to recognise and be good role models
· providing stimulating teaching and learning environments
· using appropriate forms of communication for all our students
· devising individual behaviour programmes for children as and when required
· preparing pupils to be life long learners
· consistent handling of behaviour including communication with staff/ parents /carers
Stepped guidance to enable pupils to manage their own behaviour
We as staff recognise the inability of some children to be able to manage their own behaviour, subsequently these children will require a degree of intervention using one or some of the following approaches (not in order of merit):-
· assess the circumstances and seriousness of an individual pupil’s behaviour e.g. home or school difficulties, medical problems, communication difficulties etc. before proceeding with a particular approach
· investigate possible antecedents leading up to a particular behaviour
· deal with any issues as quickly as possible with the staff concerned
· refer to the positive handling plan
· involve the SLT member on each site
· Involve the Headteacher
· involve the parents / carers
· involve other professionals
· use formal behaviour de-escalation techniques e.g. Team Teach
School Philosophy
The school pays due regard to the Children Act 2004 in protecting the rights of children.
The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting School Award (RRSA) is based on principles of equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation. The RRSA helps to put the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of the school’s ethos and culture to improve well-being and develop every child’s talents and abilities to their full potential. A rights-respecting school is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practiced, respected, protected and promoted. Young people and the school community learn about children’s rights by putting them into practice every day.
The school pays due regard to DfES circular Listening to and involving children and young people 01/2014
The school aims to prevent children from either hurting themselves, others or damaging school property.
The school welcomes Oxfordshire’s guidance on “Use of reasonable Force.” 2013
The staff work with each child in an individual manner according to the child’s level of understanding and special needs.
The staff use a variety of approaches to promote positive behaviour in children. We encourage consistent handling of children to ensure parents/carers and school can work together effectively.
All the staff, students and volunteers at Mabel Prichard School need to be well informed, well trained and adopt a consistent approach to promote positive behaviours at home and school. A close relationship is encouraged between home and school.
Some children have a “positive handling plan” which is shared and developed with parents/carers.
Some of the strategies used at Mabel Prichard School to support positive behaviour:-
1. Team Teach: All staff are trained in “Team Teach” by an outside professional agency. Team Teach demonstrates certain holds which are safe for the child and staff.
2. Positive reinforcement:- The majority of children respond well to praise when they have behaved appropriately. Wherever possible inappropriate behaviours are ignored and encouraged to be exchanged for a more appropriate behaviour.
3. T.E.A.C.C.H. is an approach used for working with students who have autism, or autistic characteristics, which utilises their strengths to enable them to learn. T.E.A.C.C.H. aims to provide a structured daily routine which will enable the student to develop a strategy for understanding and predicting the events happening around him or her.
4. Counselling: Staff will speak with an individual child to help them over come their fears, control their anxiety and/or relax. Staff can seek professional advice from other agencies e.g. LDCAMHs, Clear Sky and See Saw after consultation with Social Services and with parents / guardians.
5. Outside agencies: The school is able to call upon the support and advice of LDCAMHs, Social Workers, SENSS.
6. Reporting and recording: Some children have Risk Assessments. Some children have Positive Handling Plans which are all shared with parents and carers. All incidents of verbal and physical abuse are reported to the LA. All pupil accidents are recorded and reported to parents and carers and the LA. All staff accidents are reported to the LA. All forms of Physical Intervention are recorded and stored in the bound book.
Please read in conjunction with Positive Handling Policy