What is discipline>Understanding Supportive Behaviour Management
There are no solutions, only strategies
So before you click off onto another site, take a bit of time to reflect why this statement stands.
We all are people dealing with people and each of us, adult and child, is unique, and have to have tailor-made personalised programmes if we are to reach our joint objective of helping students to engage with a curriculum that may not meet all of their needs
More often than not, this can also be translated into "When you allow me to teach you, I think you might find that what I have to offer is perhaps worth your time and effort, and I will praise you for what you have done. That way, we can both be a little happier, day by day"
Successful teachers manage most behaviours successfully most of the time, but not always
Many of you will have come across the Assertive Discipline system (under copyright in the UK to Behaviour & Learning Management), used by many schools with varying success. A variance of this is described as a 'Consequence based' behaviour management programme - and these programmes will meet the needs of the majority of students - probably around 85-95% according to context.
One of the main proponents of this consequences system is Ninestyles school in Birmingham. In order to get a contrasting view, check out some of the thinking involved in developing their system
From their website, guidelines for staff, the behaviour policy is summarised here. This has now been updated to include a new level C5 which is isolation. Just see how complex the policy is and I challenge any staff to know all of these regulations. How will the CYP manage if the staff don't know all of this? Where is the 'reasonable adjustment' for those who need them?
Simple-Supportive-Safe seems a better route to take
The Supportive Behaviour Management programme outlined on this site looks at setting up a system that helps all students to reach their potential, regardless of their additional needs - particularly those with emotional difficulties. So if your school has a consequence-based model of behaviour management and yet you still would like to succeed with, rather than exclude those challenging 10-15% of students, I think there might be an opportunity to review your policy direction and consider an SBM model instead.
Most children, around 85-95% of your school, most of the time will manage to work within assertive discipline and consequence-based guidelines day in and day out, but there are some for which this type of sometimes inflexible and robust approach is not appropriate. It is this 10% which is the most challenging group for any school to manage and that this system copes with extremely well
The Supportive Behaviour Management programme is designed to meet the needs of the majority of students but also enables the most challenging children, around 10 - 15% of your school, to have a pathway to success as well. Within this 10 - 15%, 5% are most likely a problem on a daily basis, but generally manageable, 4% are very challenging and oppositional, and 1% will seem to be outside anything you set up or do.
These final 5% will require the most input, sometimes give the least visible results and will still continue to be challenging and demanding.