Thoughts From A Trainee: Evaluating The Implementation Of Behaviour Policies

 By Lorenzo Stefanile

When considering what to focus on for our PGCE-required “School Based Study”, Joyce Wu and I found ourselves consistently coming back to WA’s behaviour policy and how it is implemented. My only other educational experience has been working as an LSA in an independent school in London which was quite a contrasting experience to my time at WA. At my previous school, it almost seemed like there was no behaviour policy; teachers were not allowed to give detentions, and consequently there was often disrespect and defiance from the students toward the teachers. Therefore, after arriving at WA and seeing how there was a clear and well-defined behaviour policy that was implemented by all teachers, made me curious to explore the concept further. 

We divided our study and consequent presentation into three parts:

1. Understand through the literature on the subject and discussions with other teachers, what the true purpose of a behaviour policy is, and how we can measure its efficacy.

2. Collect and analyse as much quantitative data as we could from Arbor on exclusions, detentions and G22. Send out and analyse surveys from teachers and students about the WA behaviour policy (thank you to all those who filled it out).

3. Draw conclusions from the quantitative and qualitative data we have collected and make some suggestions on how we can improve our behaviour policy.

We focused first on defining the purpose of a behaviour policy and settled on several points which include:

• To provide an opportunity to put shared values about the ways school communities are expected to behave into practice

• To enable each pupil to have an appropriate environment for learning and each teacher to create a suitable environment

When considering how one could even measure the success of a behaviour policy, we settled on two ways; the first is quantitatively using data on exclusions, rewards, and exam results; however, we agreed that the more important measures were the socio-personal ones like classroom behaviour, social relationships, student wellbeing and teacher satisfaction. As we found from a report of a school that created a hugely successful new behaviour policy from scratch:

“Any successful organisation needs to engage with all those in the organisation to be ‘partners in change’. [The team in charge of developing the policy must make] great efforts throughout the development of the project to seek the participation of all the key players in the school, the teachers, parents and, above all, the pupils in all aspects of the formation of the new policy.” 

Secondly, we gathered and analysed survey data from both teachers and students. We received some interesting feedback. The staff’s feedback on the behaviour policy can be summarised as the following:

• Routines and reminders/warnings are seemingly the most effective methods of behaviour management at any age

• Some staff struggle to find time to run detentions

• Sometimes there are inconsistencies in enforcing the behaviour policy

• Activities that are more reflective may be preferable to a sanction such as G22 in some instances

• There can be teacher bias in terms of which students they sanction

The students’ feedback was surprisingly similar in that they reported that:

• Some teachers appear to have their own behaviour rules

• There can be a lack of consistency in enforcing behaviour policy

• Some teachers need to communicate more patiently with students and create a respectful relationship

• There can be teacher bias in terms of which students they sanction

These results show a general consensus among the staff and student body on which areas need improvement.

So, what are the next steps? How can we improve? 

There are certainly some implementations that every teacher could personally put in place, such as the following:

• Regular communication with students and staff to evaluate the implementation of the behaviour policy

• Encourage verbal positive feedback and physical rewards for good behaviour. 

• If the parents can see the reward, it’s even better, as the students get double the praise. Contact parents for positive achievements like accumulation of house points, not just for detentions.

However, as a teacher wrote in response to the survey we sent out:

“A policy on its own is not sufficient at deterring unexpected behaviours. Its success is underpinned by staff approaches, good relationships with students and consistent application over time” – anonymous WA teacher