Behaviour for Learning

Mission statement

“To be the best that we can be”

Motto

To help everyone in the school community to be clear about what we are trying to achieve, our simple motto encapsulates our intentions:

Respectful, Responsible, Ready

This motto underpins everything we do, including our approach to Behaviour for Learning. We regularly discuss our motto and mission with students to help them understand what is expected of them.

Rewards 

An effective rewards system is as important as sanctions for promoting good behaviour.

Principles
Our approach to rewards recognises that the most powerful element is to make a conscious effort to maintain and build a positive culture across school. Praise should be ‘in the air’ around school so students feel that we are constantly trying to ‘catch them getting it right’.

Recording rewards
The planner will track rewards both inside and outside of lessons. Staff will stop students, asking for their planner, when they see or hear about something positive that deserves recognition. The student’s tutor will keep a central record of the number of stamps a student accumulates over the course of the academic year. This running total will mean they qualify for certain privileges and recognition will be given when certain milestones are reached.

What will be rewarded, and how?
We have broken down the opportunities for reward into categories: daily, weekly, half termly, termly and annually. On top of being awarded a stamp for Golden Standard learning characteristics, students will now be able to pick up Golden Tickets for their wider contribution to school life (for traits like respect, inclusivity, tolerance and kindness). This shift came from requests coming out of the Parents Forum and the Student Leadership Team.

In lessons students will be placed on the ‘recognition board’ as a visual reminder to all about the expectations we have and the [praise you receive if and when students display them.

Our move to year group teams will allow us to run more rewards trips and incentives. Being invited on one of these will be linked to the new rewards data the system will produce.

An exciting new addition to the rewards policy is the introduction of 3Rs badges. Each term, tutors will award three badges to students in their form that most encapsulate the Respectful, Responsible and Ready culture. Students will be encouraged to collect all three badges during their time with us building towards the golden 3Rs badge signifying their approach to education and others are fully aligned with our school values.

Sanctions

We recognise that the most effective and important way to achieve good standards of behaviour for learning is through high quality lesson planning, relationships and management by teachers: using a wide range of techniques to get the best out of students and encourage them to make positive decisions without sanctions. This applies both in the classroom and when planning learning.

Underpinning this, there needs to be a clear system of sanctions so that everyone knows exactly what consequences to expect when they do not meet the school’s expectations. All our expectations are rooted in the need to be respectful, responsible and ready.

Points System

Students receive a ‘point’ for minor misdemeanours, such as:

• Arriving to form without the correct uniform or equipment
• Arriving to lessons late, or without equipment or homework
• Not meeting expectations when moving around the site, e.g. running, pushing or eating inside; swearing when among peers.
• Disrupting learning during lessons, after a reminder by the teacher, for example: talking over people, shouting out, disrupting other students. Each time a student receives a point, they will be given a chance to reset and reminder of the need to be respectful, responsible and ready. If a student receives three points for inappropriate behaviour within a single lesson, they will be removed from the lesson (see Escalation below).

Points will be recorded in the student planner, which students must have with them at all times. They have been designed to fit in a blazer pocket for that reason.

If and when a student reaches five points within a half term, they will receive a lunchtime detention. Points accumulation will be closely monitored by form tutors and they will move to an intervention stage if a worrying trend is emerging. At the end of every half term, all students’ points will reset to zero to give them a chance for a fresh start.

Escalation and more serious misbehaviour

For the great majority of students, occasional reminders and, where necessary, points will be enough to remind them of how they are expected to behave and no further action will be necessary. Where this isn’t the case, or where misbehaviour is more serious, a clear and proportionate system of escalation is needed.

We will not at any point lose sight of our belief that all students should be treated with dignity and respect. Student wellbeing, progress and sense of community is central to the rewards culture Millthorpe endeavours to produce.

Five points in a half term
Students will serve a 30-minute lunchtime detention if they receive five points within a half term.

Three points in a lesson
If a student receives three points for inappropriate behaviour in one lesson, they will be removed from the lesson to prevent further disruption and will complete their work in another classroom. They will then serve a 30-minute lunchtime detention and 60-minute after-school detention. We take poor behaviour in lessons very seriously and hope that the detentions prove to be a serious deterrent that helps create the purposeful learning environment we all want. 

Other detention sanctions
Students receive immediate sanctions for a small number of misdemeanors such as: persistent failure to complete homework in a particular subject or smoking/vaping on the school site. Students will serve a 30-minute or 90-minute detention, depending on the severity. If the incident is very serious, consideration may be given to a more significant sanction.

Failure to complete a sanction
If a student does not successfully complete a sanction, including working quietly in another room after being removed from their own lesson, the sanction will be escalated to the next level. The usual levels of sanction would be:

• 30 minute detention
• 90 minute detention
• half day internal exclusion
• full day internal exclusion
• suspension

Intervention

If students are showing a concerning pattern of behaviour they will be placed on a suitable intervention programme to help them move back towards making positive choices. This involves setting the student targets for improvement, supported and monitored by their form tutor, teaching staff and parents. If this is unsuccessful, a more formal intervention will be followed. We envisage that very few students would require this stage.