Behaviour & Attitudes
Prince Henry's is a successful school, where the majority of our students behave well and follow the rules. This respectful attitude contributes to their ability to flourish and achieve.
The success of Positive Discipline is dependent on support from and partnership with parents/carers. Positive Discipline ensures that students have clear guidelines and are rewarded for good behaviour, work and effort, whilst at the same time providing a framework within which incidents of poor behaviour and other misdemeanours are challenged and sanctioned in a consistent manner. Over time, it has helped improve students’ attitude to learning and has significantly reduced incidents of “low-level disruption” in the classroom.
In short, at Prince Henry’s, we will not allow the learning of the vast majority of hardworking students to be disrupted or impeded by a minority. The Positive Discipline policy was fully updated at the end of the last academic year following feedback from students, staff and parents/carers and acknowledging the changes made to recording methods. The most recent policy can be viewed on the school website here.
Members of the school community know that behaviour data is centrally recorded on Arbor, allowing parents and carers to view real-time information about how their child is progressing.
It is essential to point out that we expect very few students to be doing anything other than enjoying working well at school and receiving the rewards and benefits that go with such an approach.
Recording of positive discipline
PD data is recorded in Arbor. This allows staff, students and parents to see real time data around student performance.
Rewards
Many of our students contribute positively to our school environment. We aim to recognise this frequently, ensuring they receive more messages of praise than reprimand.
The PD rewards system allows students to gather STAMPS and CREDITS for demonstrating positive behaviour. Frequent positive recognition of student achievement will be placed on Arbor. All teaching and non-teaching staff will operate within this system.
Beyond the above system of ongoing rewards there are other rewards that are available throughout the year. These include:
- Staff praise emails
- Postcards
- Fortnightly Prize Draw
- Regular Positive gatherings
- SLT Praise
- Awards Ceremonies
- Celebration Events/ Trips
Full details can be found in the Behaviour Policy.
Sanctions
Our sanctions system is in place to support students in ‘making the right decision’. Most of our students will rarely, if ever, interact with the sanctions system. To ensure clarity the system of escalating sanctions is explained to students in PD registrations.
Sanctions are recorded as shown in the table below:
|
Behaviour logged as a… |
RED Incidents In lesson only |
YELLOW Incidents |
BEHAVIOUR |
|
Main Reason given… |
Disruption to Learning |
Organisation |
One-off incident |
|
Receive a detention when… |
3 in a subject in a half term |
6 across all school in a half term |
1 incident added* *May be higher than detention if appropriate |
|
Parents notified by… |
Email received when incident occurs |
Email when the 6th is received (can view in Arbor anytime) |
Email received when incident occurs |
All of the above will be recorded directly onto Arbor and parents/ carers can then view this directly in the Arbor App.
Notifications of detentions arrive at the point the detention is set on the system. There will always be a 24-hour gap.
Students will view Arbor each morning in form time and should check their calendar to see if they have any detentions assigned. Tutors will aim to counsel students that received comments the previous day each morning and encourage them to make more positive choices.
Students will be told verbally by the member of staff when they are assigned an incident and will receive an email by 4pm each day that confirms the incidents they have received on that day. If a student does not receive an email, they have not been given any negative incidents that day.
Detentions
Detentions take place from 3.00pm to 4.00pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Parents/carers will receive an email giving notice of, and brief reasons for, the detention. This will show on a student’s electronic timetable on Arbor. Attendance at detentions is compulsory and non- negotiable. A student who fails to attend will be placed in a longer, Friday night, SLT detention.
Students receiving repeated detentions will be placed on monitoring report. They will be offered support to improve their behaviour, but also face further sanctions should the negative behaviour continue.
Reflection
Where student behaviour is particularly disruptive, a referral to the Reflection Room will automatically follow.
Reflection is an extremely serious sanction. The Reflection Room has a functional and purposeful environment. Students work in silence on activities that get them to reflect on why they are in the room as well as completing classwork which their teachers send them. Students will be away from the main school and unable to socialise with other students.
The duration of the day in the Reflection Room will be from 8.30am to 3.00pm. All students who are placed in Reflection must bring their set books and equipment for that day. A student who is late to Reflection (arriving after 8.30 am) without good reason will repeat the full day at the earliest opportunity. A student who is absent will serve this time when they return to school.
The level of commitment displayed by the student will be recorded. A student who works satisfactorily or better will rejoin mainstream lessons, though a record of the period of Reflection will be kept in the child’s personal file. It is also worth noting that this sanction, as with any sanction, can be reached through a gradual process of continued unacceptable behaviour or through the committing of a misdemeanour which is considered sufficiently serious to warrant such an immediate sanction.
School Bus Expectations and Sanctions
We would be grateful if you could remind your child of the expectations regarding behaviour on school buses. These include the expectation that students will:
- Always behave appropriately on the bus.
- Be polite and pleasant to the bus driver and other passengers.
- Always sit down on a seat where possible.
- Not stand near to the bus driver.
- Report any problems relating to poor behaviour to their Year Manager.
- Always carry their bus pass, ensuring they are on the correct bus, as shown on their card.
We know that the vast majority of our students understand this and follow our expectations at all times and we thank those students for their cooperation. We also know, however, that on some buses a small number of students are spoiling the journey to/ from school with their inappropriate behaviour. Students should be reminded that all the buses have cameras and drivers are reporting names of students who are misbehaving to school. All allegations of poor behaviour will be investigated and, where necessary, actions will be taken in line with the positive discipline system.
For students identified as exhibiting poor behaviour on school buses sanctions will escalate as follows:
- 1st time reported – Student(s) will receive an in-school sanction, with a bus warning letter sent to parents outlining our concerns.
- 2nd time reported – Student(s) will receive a ban from using the school buses lasting five school days.
- 3rd time reported – Student(s) will receive a ban from using the school buses lasting 30 school days.
- 4th time reported – Student(s) will be banned for at least the rest of the academic year. In serious cases, this will be a permanent school bus ban.
Please also note the above sanctions may be escalated more rapidly for more serious incidents.
If a student is banned from the school bus it will be up to them to find an alternative way to get to/ from school. We appreciate this may be an inconvenience for that student and their family, but all students should be able to travel to and from school safely.
It is important that all students who use the school buses understand our expectations. We are confident that the above sanctions will only be a concern for a very small number of students whose persistent poor behaviour is spoiling the journey for the majority.
For more information about travel to school, visit here.
Other behaviours
It is worth highlighting that a handful of misdemeanours have clear stand-alone sanctions. These particularly focus on mobile phones, inappropriate iPad use and Bus behaviour. A list of these can be seen in the school’s Behaviour Policy.
The Role of Parents/Carers
We need students to understand that the school and parents/carers work together. Parents can best support the school by regularly reviewing their child’s behaviour data in Arbor, by encouraging positive performance and by challenging underperformance.