Appendix 2
Description of staff meeting about behaviour
When:
after school
Where:
in the ICT suite, staff seated round a table the 3 KS2 TAs at together at far end. Head sat half way down table on far side with strong light from windows behind her. Deputy head sat next to TAs
Who:
Teachers from KS1 but no TAs as they had not been properly informed of the meeting. Most teachers from KS2 but not all TAs as some were running after-school club and no cover had been provided, others were unable to attend for personal reasons or had chosen not to. One teacher with strong views was unable to attend but had briefed deputy head on their views. The two learning mentors.
What happened:
Before the start of the meeting there was a lot of talk about a rise in serious behavioural incidents in the school and general agreement that behaviour had worsened year on year.
Head chaired the meeting - she brought the behaviour policy document that has been agreed with the governors. Some aspects of the wording needed to be altered.
She suggested that the policy document might be too prescriptive as it mentioned the use of the traffic lights system which many of the teachers no longer use.
There was a lot of grumbling from teachers about the loss of break times the system involved. One teacher and myself defended the use of the charts and explained how last year we had turned them upside down and added silver and gold areas. Children were then able to move up from green to even better behaviours. Extra Golden Time could be earned by those who reached gold. This changed the emphasis on to positive rather than negative behaviour and the children had responded very well. The teacher that that class moved on to said he had abandoned the system within days as he "didn't think children needed to be rewarded for what they should be doing anyway." This class is now a major behavioural problem in the school.
One of the KS1 staff went on to describe a system in use in her classroom:
children start the week with 20 stars, these can be lost for unacceptable behaviour but can also be earned back. All those with 20 stars at the end of the week take part in a treat activity - baking cakes, extra art etc.
Agreement was reached that the policy should be amended and that it should no longer mention specific strategies but rather say that each teacher will employ a variety in order to maintain behaviour standards in their class room. The head was very keen that any strategy chosen should include a visual element.
The deputy head then began to raise the points he and the absent member of staff had discussed. These focussed on the school response to serious incidents. There was a discussion about exclusions and the head explained that because of the BIP money if we excluded a child the school had to provide a member of staff. This person then had to go with the child to another school and supervise them whilst they worked alone there. This had happened on one occasion already.
There then followed a detailed discussion about an individual child and a member of staff which it would be unethical to go into any further here.
This raised the emotional temperature of the room and brought to the surface the feelings of some teachers and TAs that there was a lack of support from senior management and a need for more clarity and transparency. Almost none of the staff had known about the BIP money or the changes in exclusion policies that it brought. Even some senior staff were unaware of the legal procedures for temporary exclusion and at what point the PRU got involved.
The head agreed that action needed to be taken at an earlier stage before behaviour escalates to such unacceptable levels.
We talked about consistency but there was a feeling that we might mean different things by that.
The deputy head then moved on to introduce the idea of a supervised break-time, lunch time, and after-school detention area. This would be supervised by staff. Teacher were quite keen on this idea at first. I pointed out that support staff would not be available to supervise lunchtimes or after-school as we are not paid for this time. I also mentioned that people had been unwilling to use the traffic lights system because it had eaten into their breaks.
It was agreed that the system would be tried for a short period in KS2 with teachers doing the supervision.
The meeting moved on to other areas and the TAs left.
index
reflection