Relationships and Behaviour at Newburgh Primary School
Over the last couple of years, the staff at Newburgh have engaged in intensive training with the Educational Psychologist Service, Virtual School and Warwickshire Safeguarding to develop a greater understanding of challenging behaviour and in providing the support that the children of today's society need.
Our training has included 'Attachment and Trauma', Emotion Coaching', 'Restorative Practice', 'Resilience' 'Inclusive Solutions to Behaviour that Challenges', 'Anxiety - A Psychological Rethink' and support for writing our new 'Relational Policy for Behaviour'.
PACE
PACE focuses on the whole child, not simply the behaviour. It helps children be more secure with the adults and reflect upon themselves, their thoughts, feelings and behaviour, building the skills that are so necessary for maintaining a successful and satisfying life. The child discovers that they are doing the best that they can..
When children experience the adults doing the best they can to understand them and trying to work out together more effective ways for the child to understand, make sense of and manage their emotions, thoughts and behaviour they start to believe that the adults really will keep on trying until things get better for all of them.
For adults, using PACE most of the time, they can reduce the level of conflict, defensiveness and withdrawal that tends to be ever present in the lives of troubled children. Using PACE enables the adult to see the strengths and positive features that lie underneath more negative and challenging behaviour.
Emotion Coaching
When we work with all children, and especially those who have experienced trauma or who have had interruptions in their relationships, we use emotion coaching techniques to help them understand themselves.
There are 5 steps to emotion coaching:
1 Recognise the child’s emotions- recognising, empathising, soothing to calm and connect with the child.
2 Validating or labelling that feeling.
3 Communicate empathy and understanding to the child by building a place of respect, trust and a safe haven.
4 Setting limits to their behaviour.
5 Problem solving with the child.
This shows the type of language that staff will use with your child to support them understanding their emotions and will be beneficial for parents to mirror this language.
Equality and Equity
Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.
Flipping the Lid
We use the language with the children that enables them to understand how they are feeling and that some behaviour is not a simple matter of choice. The children are introduced to the concept of “flipping the lid” which is usually the result of feeling extremely emotionally dysregulated.
Restorative Approach
After incidents, and as part of daily interactions, staff will work with those children affected to facilitate restorative encounters to resolve conflict and harm and to support change.
Restorative conversation:
- What has happened?
- Who was affected?
- What were you feeling?
- What were other involved feeling?
- How can we make things right?
Rewards
The school has high expectations for behaviour, as it believes that this will develop an ethos of kindness and cooperation and encourage the children to learn to self-regulate and co-operate with each other.
Children receive verbal praise and personal feedback on behaviour and engagement with their learning throughout the day.
Children can receive class marbles so that they build up to fill the class marble jar which is rewarded with a 5-10 minutes treat each time the jar is full.
Children are also given individual house points for their teams; Sapphire Bear, Golden Lion, Emerald Dragon, Crimson Phoenix.
Children will normally receive 1 house point or in exceptional circumstances 2 house points for:
- positive contributions,
- a positive attitude,
- outstanding commitment or
- making the right choice.
House points are counted each week by the House Captains and announced in Friday assembly.
Headteacher and DHT Awards / Merits are given to individual children for exceptional achievements – work, progress, attitudes, resilience. Merits build up for an individual reward at the end of the year.
Consequences
Every child knows the standard of behaviour that we expect in our school. Class expectations are generated by the pupils and the class teacher and will be revisited as appropriate throughout the year. They focus on clear structures and boundaries and are written in a positive manner.
If a child feels that someone is doing or saying something to them that upsets them they are encouraged to take control and say “stop it, please”. If the behaviour or comments do not stop this should be reported to a member of staff, who investigates the allegation. The meaning of ‘consideration’ and ‘stop it, please’ are reinforced in assemblies and in class throughout the year
Time is given to reflect on poor behaviour choices and restorative conversations are held to repair damage to relationships and enable a fresh start.
Our Pastoral team are available to support pupils with their regulation and learning and a room is available for pupils who need to spend some time away from their classrooms.
As a last resort, suspensions and permanent exclusions may be made. We do not wish to suspend or exclude any child from school, but sometimes this may be a necessary sanction when warranted as part of creating a calm, safe and supportive environment where children can learn and thrive.
Courses and advice for Parents and Carers
