No shouting, no shaming: A case study of a mainstream primary school using a whole-school relational approach. Intent.
September 20, 2021
There are a variety of reasons why a school might want to use a relational approach to behaviour management, and these approaches are increasingly being used to help specific groups of children. The Department of Education's guidelines on how to create a school behaviour policy, as mentioned in the introduction, places a strong emphasis on rules, rewards, and sanctions. The wording of this guidance leans heavily towards negative reinforcement and states explicitly that 'Schools should have… clear sanctions for those who do not comply with the school's behaviour policy.’ Despite this, a school may have a specific group of students who struggle with a behaviourist approach, a desire to improve the emotional well-being of staff and students, or a desire to appeal to specific parents – for example, as an adoptive parent, I would prefer to send my child to a school that used a relational approach because I know my children would benefit from it. Many special schools, particularly those specialising in students with social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) issues, have adopted a relational approach in some form.
Oak Grove Primary School (a pseudonym) is a large, urban primary school in Birmingham, with around 400 students. Their current behaviour policy, which has been in effect since 2017, is based on relational concepts such as natural consequences, 'naming the need,' and co-regulation with staff presence. The school was initially recommended in an online support group for adoptive parents. Suggested schools were screened to decide whether they met specific criteria (1): that they were a mainstream school, that the relational approach used was whole-school, and that they did not overly rely on behaviourist methods. To answer the research questions, the study used a variety of data sources (3). The main research question for this study was: what does a relational approach to behaviour management look like in a mainstream school? To answer this question, it had to be split into sub-questions to look at all of the many facets of the approach. The methods used to triangulate findings (4) were designed to be flexible, and the data gathering structure was based on the new Ofsted framework for examining a school's curriculum: intent, implementation, and impact (5). This issue looks at what the main drivers were behind the school taking this approach.
During the semi-structured interview, the headteacher indicated that the assistant headteacher approached him around seven years ago with data on Key Stage 2 results for students with SEMH issues. They recognised that these children's results were far poorer than their peers' and that something needed to be done to improve these children's outcomes. They began by utilising individualised approaches for specific students. However, they quickly realised that a whole-school strategy would be more efficient. This supports the research that finds children with an insecure attachment style are more likely to have problems with behaviour and learning (6, 7, 8). Children and young people with better well-being are more likely to achieve academically (9, 10). Government policy and guidance emphasise the importance of a whole-school approach to managing child behaviour (11).
When asked about the school's approach, both senior leaders agreed that it was an amalgamation of many techniques, including relational discussions and the PACE model. The terms' positive,' 'care,' 'kind,' 'understand,' and 'achievement' were among the top 250 words used in a word frequency analysis of all the papers examined in this study, indicating the relational manner in which the language is used. The interview revealed that the intent behind this approach had been largely based on creating an ethos in the school, of being "kind", "compassionate", and accepting that all children have "vulnerabilities at [some] point". The school's behaviour policy, headed by the following quote, supports this ethos:
Thinking of a child as behaving badly disposes you to think of punishment. Thinking of a child as struggling to handle something difficult encourages you to help them through their distress.
There is a concern that the needs of particular groups of children in schools will compete with the needs of others in school (12), especially when a whole-school strategy is used. On the other hand, this approach does not make 'exceptions' for a few students; instead, it examines the core aspects of the school's practise (12). Having attuned, high-quality relationships within the school and community; supporting staff welfare; effective communication between professionals, parents, and children, and understanding the approaches used are just a few examples (12). All children can benefit from having a calm, structured and attuned environment in school (12). Another driver behind this approach was experience: partly from the head teacher's personal experience with adopted children and also from the assistant head teacher's experience with children with SEMH difficulties. This experience shows that some of the main factors in this approach are relationships and responding to needs. The school's behaviour policy sums this up with the following:
The most important aspect in children feeling valued, safe and secure is the sense of connection with the member of staff. For most children, this can be achieved by simple acknowledgement of the child and the child having the knowledge that you have them in your mind, care about them as a person and care about what they are doing.
To summarise, Oak Grove Primary School began employing relational approaches in response to poor academic outcomes for students with SEMH issues. Because they recognise that all students have problems at some point in their lives, they realised that a whole-school strategy worked best.
Please do not hesitate to contact me for tailored consulting and training if your school is interested in establishing a whole-school relational behaviour policy.
References
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2. Attachment and Trauma-Sensitive Schools Award [Internet]. Attachment and Trauma-Sensitive Schools Award. 2021 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: http://www.attachmentandtraumasensitiveschoolsaward.com/
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5. OFSTED. An investigation into how to assess the quality of education through curriculum intent, implementation and impact [Internet]. 2018 [cited 20 September 2021]. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-research-assessing-intent-implementation-and-impact
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9. Adoption UK. Bridging The Gap [Internet]. Adoption UK; 2018 [cited 19 September 2021]. Available from: https://www.basw.co.uk/system/files/resources/bridging-the-gap.pdf
10. Morrison Gutman L, Vorhaus J. The Impact of Pupil Behaviour and l on Educational Outcomes [Internet]. London: Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre.; 2012 [cited 19 September 2021]. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-impact-of-pupil-behaviour-and-wellbeing-on-educational-outcomes
11. Ellis S, Tod J. Promoting behaviour for learning in the classroom. 2nd ed. London: Routledge; 2018.
12. Gore Langton E, Boy K. Becoming an adoption-friendly school. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers; 2017.
