Behaviour and Attitudes

This page starts by explaining some of the systems and strategies in place at Hazeldown to support children with developing positive attitudes and goes on to explain about behaviour. The two are closely linked in many ways. ‘Behaviour’ is not always about the negative, or ‘being naughty’ – we focus more on the wider context of ‘conduct’ to encompass all aspects of how we act as individuals in a wide range of contexts.

We have used Paul Dix’s book ‘When the Adults Change, Everything Changes’ as inspiration for elements of our approach to supporting behaviour but the biggest impact on both attitudes and behaviour is our focus on relationships. At Hazeldown, all our adults put a great deal of effort in to building relationships with children. Knowing them as individuals means we can cater for their particular needs and provide appropriate support, direction and resolution to issues.

‘Attitudes’

At Hazeldown Primary School we:

aim high and are not afraid to dream;

pursue our individual North Stars;

believe that we CAN!

have a warrior spirit & never give up;

see mistakes as learning opportunities;

show kindness;

form strong connections;

demonstrate respect;

celebrate individuality;

believe in equality;

think carefully about how to approach our learning;

self-organise;

are reflective;

discuss the ‘why’;

go above and beyond…

every single day.

We work hard to support our children to develop positive attitudes, to build their character, to recognise right and wrong, to be able to make appropriate choices in a range of situations and to be proud of their conduct and approach to life. Being emotionally literate, recognising and being able to articulate their feelings and act accordingly are crucial elements of supporting positive attitudes towards themselves, towards others and towards their learning.

Our Learning Values

Our Learning Values are key to developing character. They are based on Guy Claxton’s work on ‘Building Learning Power’ and ensure that, whilst children learn the relevant knowledge and skills during their time at Hazeldown, developing the right character is also going to be a key contributor to future success.

Our Learning Values are:

Collaboration

Resilience

Empathy

Relationships

Reflective

Risk-Taking

Resourceful

In addition to these, we purposefully don’t write down that they are underpinned by the principles of Kindness and Respect. This emphasises the fact that they should be a ‘given’ and we shouldn’t need to write them down.

Our Learning Values are also provided with younger-child friendly statements and the Early Years children engage with them initially as dinosaur characters to introduce the language and principles.

The Learning Values are displayed in every classroom with examples of children demonstrating them in a range of contexts are captured and added to the display through the year. They are continually referenced and exemplified and instant recognition of positive application of them is achieved through post-it notes children are given and add to the display on a weekly basis. They take these home at the end of the week.

Attitudes to Learning

At Hazeldown, we follow a principle of ‘Learning for Living’, focusing on making sure that the children have access to engaging and relevant learning experiences. We always ‘start with the ‘Why’’ to make sure children understand the reason we are learning something, following Simon Sinek’s concentric circles model.

Through extensive work on Growth Mindset, which is an embedded feature of the school, and the use of the metacognition cycle to support children with planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning, the children develop a motivation for their learning by understanding both the relevance and the importance of it.

Positive attitudes are further fostered through the use of purple pens (purple for progress), where the children will self-mark, uplevel and improve or re-draft their work in response to either verbal feedback from the teacher, support from peers or their own monitoring. They may also reflect on their learning in purple to further demonstrate and deepen their understanding.

Growth Mindset

Developing a Growth Mindset is a key strength of the school. We focus on the language we use around praise – praising the process and the effort, including effective strategies, rather than intelligence and abilities. This places value on what the children have done and what they need to do to continue to be successful.

Not being afraid to have a go, to learn from our mistakes and demonstrating resilience (one of our learning values) and perseverance are also key features of our approach. The children use a purple pen to self-mark work, improve it, respond to feedback and reflect on their learning as part of the process.

In the past, children would have worked through a lot of calculations in maths, got a lot of ticks to show they were correct and looked like they were good at maths. We focus on working on a few questions, which will be challenging and talk about children ‘having the right to struggle’, but with support around them. We love to get things correct, but we usually learn more, or more deeply when we get them wrong.

We use the Learning Challenge from James Nottingham as an image to support children’s understanding with this.

An animation explaining this further can be found on YouTube:

James Nottingham's Learning Challenge

Our Social Bond

At Hazeldown, we talk about our Social Bond – we ‘live by’ these three simple statements:

Everyone has the right to learn without disruption.

Everyone has the right to feel comfortable whilst at school.

Everyone has the right to not be hurt whilst at school.

This focus helps create an atmosphere where children can bounce in through the gate in the morning knowing that it will be a good day, that they will feel safe and that, if there are any issues, they will be addressed. Happy and comfortable learners will be better learners!

Conversely, we also have the expectation for every individual within school to behave towards others in a manner which supports our social bond.

Where children may start to make a poor behaviour choice by doing something which goes against our social bond, there will be several quiet and discrete opportunities to change their behaviour. This could be a raised eyebrow, a ‘look, a private conversation, the opportunity to work in a different space to support focus etc. These may be followed by a ‘warning’ if they choose to continue. If a child continues with poor choices, they will “lose the right to be with everyone else” for a short period of time.

This might be an Internal Exclusion (IE) at Lunchtime or an Internal Exclusion, working in a team leader’s classroom depending on the circumstance.

This provides an opportunity for supported reflection using restorative questions to support the child with both recognising the build up to their choices, strategies for making a different choice next time and support with fixing things, usually by rebuilding trust in a relationship (beyond just saying sorry).

We are not a ‘shouty, screamy’ school – we provide a calm and supportive approach to supporting children with learning from, and fixing, their mistakes. Expectations are high, however, so repeated poor choices may require a concerted approach working alongside parents.

The process is laid out clearly for all the children in the graphic below and is regularly discussed, along with the reasons ‘why’ we make positive choices and the impact of negative ones.

The ‘repair’ part of the process is important to develop understanding and ensure children are learning from their actions, as is the opportunity for a fresh start, with no ill-effects from previous mistakes. No matter how tricky yesterday was, children are welcomed in the following day with a smile and a positive action to ensure they know their relationship with the adults is still intact and positive.

We aim to build an intrinsic motivation for positive behaviour choices rather than children just making the right choice because someone is watching or purely by providing a reward or incentive. They should want to do ‘the right thing’ with all their actions, whether it is walking down the corridor on their own or responding to a friend who has behaved badly towards them.

Pupils’ individual hard work and positive contribution to the whole school, their class, and the school community, is recognised and rewarded through Always Club, post-it notes on class recognition boards, postcards home and verbal praise.

Sometimes a child may start to display negative behaviour choices, which might be for a variety of reasons. Families can go through a lot of experiences during their time with us, and sometimes these have an impact on how a child presents, despite parents doing all the right things. At Hazeldown, we pride ourselves on not ‘giving up’ on anyone who finds behaviour choices difficult or is having a tricky time. We have a lot of very skilled staff who will support them but, in the meantime, we won’t let them hurt anyone or disrupt the learning for other children.

We also have some simple school rules, which link with our Learning Values and Social Bond -

Rules

We will treat people and property with respect.

We will follow instructions given by an adult.

We will listen carefully when being spoken to.

We will value learning time.

We will try our best all of the time.

The school has a good reputation for promoting positive behaviour and providing a safe environment. A calm and orderly environment prevails, and visitors regularly feedback positively on the children’s attitudes and conduct.

There are very few instances of poor behaviour and low-level disruption is rare. Pupils display positive attitudes to their learning and towards each other. As a result of our positive approach, high expectations, our learning values, ‘social bond’ and consistent rewards and sanctions, we are proud of the manner in which our children conduct themselves. We receive many compliments from the public when on school trips and residentials about the way our children both conduct themselves and tackle challenges.

 Behaviour was judged well in the last inspection and continues to be a strength. It was reported that ‘Pupils display positive attitudes and are keen to learn. Pupils work hard and readily give of their best inlessons. Pupils’ willingness to learn, in response to good and better teaching, is a key factor in their.…. progress’. Peer support and collaboration along with personal responsibility for your own learning are key features of the school and children demonstrate positive approaches to supporting their own and others’ learning.

We have a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment, abuse or violence, addressing any instances at an age-appropriate level and have a similar response to racial or prejudice related incidents. This all has a focus on developing children’s understanding of issues and expectations.

 Our Behaviour Policy is on the policies page of the website, should you wish to read it and includes Anti-Bullying, Pupil Discipline, Exclusions/Suspensions and Physical Intervention.

Consistency is a strength across our staff team. With regard to behaviour, it means that all our adults would respond in the same way with that particular child in that particular situation. It isn’t necessarily the case that every child is dealt with in exactly the same way as they are all individual and may have very different needs, requiring different strategies and approaches.

Bullying

It is difficult to say there is never any bullying in a school – what we do say is that if there are any issues which arise, then we deal with them promptly and robustly.

 We put a lot of time in to making sure the children know how to raise concerns either with adults at school or with trusted adults out of school who can then speak to us. There are worry boxes in each classroom and in shared spaces where children can drop a note and children are regularly reminded that they can write down their concerns, bring a friend or two to help them explain or find any adult in school to talk to, not necessarily those who work in their class. We deal promptly with issues which may occur out of school or online as well and encourage parents to raise concerns with us at the earliest opportunity.

 We spend time explaining the correct use of language with respect to bullying – that it is either a repeated action or a result of a perceived imbalance of power and the correct use of language with single incidents. If someone has accidentally knocked you with their bag in a busy cloakroom and apologised immediately, it is not fair to say that “he hit me with his bag”, which implies a deliberate action.

Overall, we are proud of how the children at Hazeldown conduct themselves and the positive attitudes they display. This is a result of the actions, behaviours, and role modelling of all our adults, regardless of the role they have in the school.