At Great Rollright, we believe that a Good Shepherd will love and take care of others; they will build a strong sense of shared identity and belonging with respect for every individual. This will be nurtured in an inclusive environment which promotes and celebrates diversity. As a valued member of our school community, each child is enabled to build strong and lasting relationships in a loving, trusting atmosphere.
As a key element of this, we actively teach Emotional Literacy. This is the ability to feel and express emotions with real understanding, and with enough confidence to be open, honest and positive, even in difficult situations. For us, education is about much more than academic standards and we believe that Emotional Literacy is a fundamental building block our children need in order to grow into responsible members of their own community.
Another integral part is recognising the role of positive relationships. We believe children who have positive relationships with those around them will achieve their full potential. We therefore put the building, maintenance and repair of relationships at the heart of everything we do. In school, we use the process of Restorative Justice so that children can have modelled and internalise the process of repair and reparation over and above the need for assigning blame and dispensing punishment.
Knowing our children and understanding each one as an individual, means that we can build a positive and trusting relationship based on mutual respect. When this is achieved, we can push the children to explore their learning further in a ‘high challenge, low threat’ approach. We believe that when pupils are nurtured and fully supported, as well as inspired by their learning, they will be far more successful. It also means that the children feel happier and safe in school, therefore incidents of challenging behaviour are rare.
Self-esteem and confidence
At Great Rollright we prepare our children for life in modern day Britain where self-esteem and confidence are vital. We give the children the opportunity to shine throughout their time at school in many ways from Reception, where children are encouraged to come into the classroom independently and hang their own coats and bags up in the cloakroom, through to Year 6 where children take part in a 5 day residential visit.
Celebration is an important part of building confidence in our learners. Each Friday we have a celebration assembly where children are awarded achievement certificates based on the 5 elements of being a Good Shepherd. There is also time for them to celebrate their achievements from home with the rest of the school. During the assembly, children can also be awarded ‘values’ stars which they are nominated for by other children as well as adults. The children themselves have developed part of the assembly to give their own rewards for the clubs they organise and run during lunchtimes. We also hold regular special class assemblies for parents and friends who come to see a showcase of the learning which has happened in their child’s class.
Learning an instrument is another strategy we use to encourage and promote self-esteem and confidence. We enable every child to learn an instrument at our school. This begins with percussion instruments in the early years following through to recorders in Year 3/4 and a brass instrument in Year 5/6. The children are encouraged to perform in assemblies and services when possible.
A key to promoting a child’s self-esteem is for them to have important roles and responsibilities. Each class has a range of roles that children can volunteer to do. These range from simple jobs such as cloakroom monitors to the wide variety of important roles that are available in Year 5 and 6. Other roles include playtime peer mediators, house team leaders and school council members.
At Rollright, we enjoy all kinds of sports throughout the year. We take part in lots of competitions within our local partnership and try to offer a range of after school sports clubs which reflect our children’s interests. We have seen this build children’s self-esteem time and time again as they are recognised for something different and it is a great opportunity to shine.
We take our school productions very seriously and they are a huge success each year! Children enjoy taking part and we give all children the confidence to sing, dance or act in front of a supportive and appreciative audience.
Listening support – ‘Talk time’
At Rollright we want to ensure that every child feels safe and happy in school, but sometimes there are reasons as to why children may find this difficult. Because of this, we provide ‘Talk time’ sessions in which children can explore these reasons with a dedicated member of staff and receive extra support where needed. For extra information about ‘‘talk time’ please click here.
The ‘Golden Rules’
We want Great Rollright School to be a place where being kind, gentle, honest, hardworking, careful and a good listener is valued and encouraged; we want our children to understand themselves as people with these qualities. These moral values underpin all the choices and decisions made by the school and its pupils. Our rules provide the expectation for everyone’s behaviour and attitudes.
They are:
Show LOVE by being kind, gentle and helpful
Work hard, be your best and follow our ‘Give me 5’ instructions
Tell the TRUTH
Show RESPECT to everyone and everything
Demonstrate COURAGE in doing the right thing and don’t be afraid of mistakes
These rules are displayed in the hall and in every classroom. However, having a set of rules is useless if they are nothing more than good intentions. We establish them as accepted behaviour with the children fully understanding about them.
Consistency and fairness
Consistency can sometimes conflict with the equally important concept of fairness. It can seem unfair to enforce the same consequences for the same actions on all children when we are aware of circumstances around the behaviour of an individual at a particular time. That does not mean that there are no consequences but that they have to be applied in a different way.
Consistency does not let us act unfairly to another child. We judge each situation on its own merits and attempt to do this as objectively as possible guided by the principles of Restorative Justice.
Culture of celebration
We believe that positive reinforcement promotes appropriate behaviour and we use a range of rewards throughout the school. These may include:
* Verbal praise from the class teacher/other teachers and/or the Head Teacher
* Communication with parents
* Class reward charts/displays, group effort or behaviour charts
* House points
* The Gold Book
* Good Shepherd Award
* The Tidy Cloakroom Award
* Achievement stickers
* A reward system which may be devised with the children
* A head teachers’ letter of commendation
* A Governor Award (for outstanding Homework)
* A Writing/Mathematics Award
* Value Stars
* Bucket filling, kindness notes or Kindness trees to celebrate kind deeds
* ‘Always Club’ breakfast
* Playtime super-hero award
Our approach to consequences
* Verbal reminders stating clearly where the child has made a wrong choice and what the expectations of the teacher are
* Time given to a child to support their thinking prior to the incident
* Restorative practice
* General reminder of expectations and class rules
* Miss playtime or part of playtime if this is applicable
* Working in another classroom
* Discussion with the Head Teacher
Restorative Practice
Our aim at Rollright is to deal with incidents of disruptive or inappropriate behaviour in a way that avoids shame and punitive responses and punishments. We hope to foster an atmosphere where children have the chance to reflect upon the impact that their behaviour has on other people,
including teaching staff. The child/children will be asked to consider their behaviour, its impact and
how they can make the situation better. We aim to discuss wrong choices with the person(s) affected. If a child hurts or upsets another child, they will be asked the following questions:
- What happened and what were you feeling at the time?
- How have you felt since?
- Who has been affected by what you did? How do you think they feel now?
- What do you think needs to happen next?
The person affected by the behaviour will be asked the following:
- What happened and what were you feeling at the time?
- How have you felt since?
- What do you think needs to happen next?
These questions are in line with a restorative practice approach where the questions are neutral and non-judgemental. They require the children to reflect on who has been affected by the behaviour and how they can make it better as well as developing empathy.
Dealing with challenging behaviour
Although generally behaviour at the school is excellent, we recognise that in some circumstances particularly with new children joining the staff or where staff lack experience, there can be challenging situations. When relationships break down, there is challenging behaviour to which we try to respond consistently, holding our Christian values close.
During lesson times and playtimes when teachers are on duty each teacher will use his or her professional skills to resolve the issues and support all of those involved using the strategies outlined in this policy. However, if there is a challenging incident, such as a child is aggressive towards others or shows a total lack of respect for adults or children, then a teacher should involve the Head Teacher.
At lunchtimes those on duty should also use their professional skills to resolve challenging situations but must always send for support if necessary.
Record Keeping
Any serious incident will be recorded on a report form and filed in the Behaviour Incident file. Parents will be involved if a child is repeatedly involved in serious incidents.
The role of parents
We believe that parents and carers are a crucial part of the support team for the child at school. We review and then ask all parents to sign our Home/School Agreement annually to demonstrate their support for the school and all its policies. We want parents and carers to fully understand how we develop positive quality relationships at school and how we promote good behaviour. We also want them to understand our system for managing challenging behaviour or a poor attitude to learning. We will keep parents informed of situations where the headteacher has been involved.
The Role of the Governing Body
The Governing Body will monitor the recorded incidents, considering the type of incident and how it has been resolved. They will also monitor standards of behaviour and levels of engagement in learning when visiting classrooms.
Our Behaviour policy can be found below –