See 'Policies' page for our updated 'Understanding and managing behaviour' Policy.

Our vision

We believe that every child at Rolleston should enjoy their education and be happy, successful and confident at school. We will value our children for their individuality, culture and heritage. We are committed to providing a place of excellence with high standards. 

Children will know how to learn as well as acquire knowledge. They will have the opportunity to achieve their full potential in their academic, creative, emotional and social, physical, moral and spiritual development. Learning will be recognised and celebrated by children and adults.

Children will have a great understanding on how to become well rounded members of society and to support well-being and mental health of themselves and others.

The learning experience and environment at Rolleston will be creative, challenging, exciting, stimulating, relevant and forward thinking.

Our school will always be a caring place where children and adults make a valuable contribution and are inspired to be creative, think for themselves and feel confident to meet new challenges.

Our children will respect themselves and others and have an understanding of their role in school and the wider community.

We believe effective partnerships between children, staff, parents, governors and the wider community are central to the success of our children.

UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOUR:

As a school, we believe that all behaviour is a form of communication.

A child’s problematic or inappropriate behaviour is a sign that he is upset and that something is not right. Children sometimes have trouble communicating, because they may not be able to verbally describe the problem or know what to do in a situation. At these times, children may act out their feelings or needs. Children engage in challenging behaviour for a reason.

Children with challenging behaviour are sending adults the message that something is not right or that their needs are not being met. There could be many reasons for a single behaviour, such as being hungry, scared, hurt, tired, bored, sad or angry. Some children may engage in behaviour that seems destructive, because they enjoy the physical sensation (for example pulling threads from clothing). Sometimes children feel unsafe or out of control, so they take inappropriate action over the things they do control, like being able to kick someone or something. A child who has tried several times to communicate to adults about what he needs, but whose needs remain unmet, will often use problem behaviour as a way of sending a very loud message.

Once adults understand what children are communicating through their behaviour, they can respond better. When children feel respected and have their needs met, there is no longer a reason to use challenging behaviour to communicate. Punishing a child for a behaviour may stop the behaviour for the moment, but it does not give the child support or provide alternate ways to act in difficult situations. When adults help children find positive ways to communicate their needs to others, children learn important social and problem-solving skills that will help them throughout their life.

Rolleston Key Principles

Our golden thread linked to understanding and managing behaviour at Rolleston:

1. Emotional wellbeing and mental health are a continuum. Related issues can range from positive attitudes and behaviour, through to experiences of emotional distress and mental disorder.
2. Schools already experience and manage emotional issues on a daily basis; the objective is to minimise the impact of such issues and maximise the effectiveness of any responses.
3. Emotional wellbeing covers a range of dimensions, such as resilience, character building, relationships and self-esteem, etc. Understanding both developmental and mental health awareness is critical.
4. Creating a positive school culture requires a whole-school approach that is led from the top while involving all in the school community.

Child learning behaviours are fundamental to our pupils’ future success.  A key principle has to be that our pupils are positive with regard to working hard and embracing challenge.  We encourage and expect our pupils to develop both independent learning behaviours’ and an intrinsic desire to grasp those opportunities available to them. We believe effective partnerships between children, staff, parents, governors and the wider community are central to the success of our children through understanding and managing behaviours consistently.  Excellent behaviour in schools is fundamental in ensuring a healthy, productive and vibrant learning community.  Excellent behaviour is not an optional extra and does not happen by accident.

MANAGING BEHAVIOUR:

The management of behaviour can be best defined as - the actions taken by the school to enable the following to be clearly evident:

• An orderly learning environment that is peaceful and productive
• Children engaged positively in learning
• Everyone in the school feeling safe and valued
• A welcoming atmosphere of co-operation, care, respect and good manners.

(See 'Understanding and managing behaviour' policy for full definition of 'misbehaviour and serious misbehaviour')

Reinforcing positive behaviours

Class based rewards – 40 marbles in the jar

The use of a class wide rewards system has many valuable outcomes:

• The system can be used to teach a particular rule
• It has the benefit of bringing the whole class together as one.
• By rewarding the whole class when they support a child on an individual Behaviour Plan to achieve his/her goal, creating a natural opportunity for the class to be supportive of the child or children with challenging behaviour rather than being jealous of them or labelling them as the ‘it’s not fair child/children’.
• It creates a sense of wellbeing for the whole class when the class achieves the goal it has been set.
• It helps individuals to improve their own behaviour.
• It can create the opportunity to signal the positive use of the rules and instructions.
• It will enable the whole class to feel very positive about themselves. 

The big reward

When the target is reached, soon afterwards (no longer than a week) the reward is made available to all children in the class. Once the target is achieved, you start all over again

Class dojo

We use Class dojo across the whole school.  A quick and simple way to record how well behaved our children are needed to be developed. 

When a ‘bing’ is achieved, the child needs to know which rules they have been awarded it for and how their behaviour demonstrated that rule.  E.g. ‘Well done Dan, you have shown respect and good manners to all by going to speak to the dinner staff about a problem you were having.’

This way the children are recognising what ‘respect and good manners’ looks like.

100, 200 and 300 dojos

When a child has achieved 100 ‘bings’, their reward is to become a Bronze Behaviour Ambassador.  The child will be presented with a bronze star badge.

The Silver Behaviour Ambassador badge will be for 200 ‘bings’ and 300 ‘bings’ for the Gold Behaviour Ambassador badge.  These badges will be worn as part of the school uniform, reflecting the appropriate behaviour that the child demonstrated to all.

Restorative Approach

Restorative Approaches provides an underpinning ethos and philosophy for making, maintaining and repairing relationships and for fostering a sense of social responsibility and shared accountability.

There are many challenges in implementing an organisation or institution-wide approach since the restorative way challenges deeply-held notions about power and control and the urge to make things unpleasant for someone when they have done something wrong or ‘misbehaved’.

When harm has been caused by inappropriate, sometimes thoughtless, negative behaviour then all sides need:

• a chance to tell their side of the story and feel heard-
• to understand better how the situation happened
• to understand how it can be avoided another time-
• to feel understood by the others involved 
• to find a way to move on and feel better about themselves

If conflicts and challenges are dealt with in a way that get these needs met then those involved can repair the damage done to their connections with the others involved, or even build connections where there were none previously. They feel fairly treated and respected, since they have been trusted to find solutions for themselves and put things right in their own way. Because they have been listened to, people in conflict are more ready to listen to others’ perspectives and emotional responses, and so empathy is developed. This can change the choices made in future situations, as mutual respect and consideration develop.

Repercussions

Repercussions do not work in isolation.  They must be balanced with positive support.  The repercussions should be framed in such a way as to reflect s discipline hierarchy

(See our 'Understanding and managing behaviour' policy for full details of dealing with misbehaviour).