Sorting Out Behaviour: A Head Teacher's Guide

Praise for Sorting Out Behaviour

I strongly recommend this extremely useful and practical guide, which demonstrates that effective behaviour management is about clarity, transparency, consistency and a set of manageable policies and procedures which are kept under constant review. Drawing on the author’s vast, first-hand experience, it is a source of common sense and practical pointers which would enable all school staff from trainees to experienced school leaders to review their behaviour policies, practices and procedures.

Brian Lightman, General Secretary,

Association of School and College Leaders

Thank you to Jeremy Rowe for providing a plain English, common sense, easy to read guide about behaviour. Perhaps more importantly, he reminds us that children aren’t criminals and that most schools are calm, productive, orderly places that are far removed from the image so often portrayed in the media. We need to hear that message more often.

Fiona Millar, Guardian Columnist

This book is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of children who, despite leading difficult lives, come to our schools every day in a spirit of generosity and hope. It is an honour and a privilege to have the chance to build schools in which these fantastic children can soar, become great and leave their trace across the sky.

And to Harriet, of course, with love.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Sorting out mistakes

Sorting out assemblies

Sorting out the primary/secondary thing

Sorting out being present

Sorting out a Hall of Fame

Sorting out consistency

Sorting out the tracking of behaviour

Sorting out the school’s reaction to change

Sorting out dealing with complaints

Sorting out rewards

Sorting out uniform

Sorting out belief

Sorting out fixed-term exclusions

Sorting out an inclusion room

Sorting out what a school can look like that hasn’t got it right

Sorting out sin bins

Sorting out the Ten Commandments

Sorting out dealing with ‘difficult’ parents

Sorting out home visits

Sorting out the reasons not to try to improve behaviour

Sorting out the reasons to try to improve behaviour

Sorting out guarantees to students

Sorting out guarantees to staff

Sorting out what you can do with students on the edge of the precipice

Sorting out the behaviour management policy

Sorting out study focus

Sorting out alternative education

Sorting out the on-call rota

Sorting out that prevention is better than cure

Sorting out whole-school detentions

Sorting out the relationship with the governing body

Sorting out what you can do to improve your school as a senior teacher

Sorting out toilets

Sorting out hierarchy

Sorting out the fire drill

Sorting out letting students leave the building during the school day

Sorting out a behaviour timeline

Sorting out students who arrive late in the mornings

Sorting out the 85% you can control now

Sorting out platforms

Sorting out my ten favourite approaches

Sorting out full-time heads of year

Sorting out a school which your students need and deserve

Sorting out advice to senior leaders

Sorting out the things naughty students love

Conclusion

Final bit

Copyright

Introduction

Like most of us, I’ve worked in schools that have got their approach to behaviour right and in some that have got it wrong. Right is better. I’ve been lucky to have had the opportunity to work with magnificent teams at Pool Academy in Cornwall and Sir John Leman High School in Suffolk, both of which are packed with colleagues who know it is possible to improve and have been prepared to do what is needed to make that improvement happen.

By working together consistently and strategically, both schools were able to see genuine improvements. This can only be achieved by teams unswervingly operating value-based systems. Without that, staff are out on a limb and the minority of students who can be difficult will have a field day.

Like you, I am doing the job day-in and day-out and, like you, I get it wrong sometimes. In fact, the minute you think you’ve sussed it, a child will literally take your legs from under you! Remembering that is quite helpful, I think.

My basic view is that behaviour is about choice. That doesn’t mean that situations are equally easy for all of us to handle, but I believe that if we factor choice out of a situation we could be robbing an individual of their entitlements and their independence. If we were all predestined to behave in certain ways, all responses would be predictable. People choose how they behave. All of