The school reopening guidance issued to schools on 2 July is a weighty document. And a significant part of it rightly focuses on the behaviour expectations that schools will need to have as we emerge into life after the coronavirus lockdown.
The following are the core aspects of the behavioural guidance that schools will need to consider.
1. “Schools should consider updating their behaviour policies with any new rules/policies”
The coming weeks will be hectic for operational school leaders as they organise new procedures that will need to be in place in school.
These measures are in place to help achieve a safe school environment and it is clear that students will need to know that the measures are compulsory, and also that there are consequences attached to poor choices around them.
So behaviour policies need to be updated with this in mind, with clear instructions and boundaries laid out, and potential challenging areas thought through. This needs to happen in good time before September, so that everything is detailed and clear before pupils return.
2. “Consider how to communicate rules, policies clearly to staff, pupils and parents”
Ensuring everyone understands new rules and routines in advance of school reopenings is paramount. Students and their families will need to know what they need to do on day one of the reopening - which doors do they use? Which areas can they go to? Where do they wash their hands when entering?
Once students are safely in the building, time must be given over to ensuring all students know new routines, new one-way systems, new rules on behaviour.
Read more:
You need to allocate time for this. It will be an overwhelming time for students and staff - new information on a mass scale is hard to retain. The best approach will be that of over-communication; ensuring that the messages are given regularly, clearly and consistently. If you think you’ve overdone the communication, keep going!
Within this guidance, it would be good practice for schools to create clear examples of what is and what is not acceptable behaviour.
For example, rather than saying, “Follow guidance on moving around the school”, the message needs to be more clearly defined - for example: “All students must follow the one-way system at all times”.
3. “It is likely that adverse experiences and/or lack of routines of regular attendance and classroom discipline may…result in increased incidence of poor behaviour”
This is something that schools will need to plan for, too. We all know that when students return from holidays, they need to be refamiliarised with school expectations. With some students having been out of school for up to six months, this is an area we really need to focus on.
The burden an increase in challenging behaviour will place on staff needs to be considered, too. While some schools are already running centralised behaviour systems, it would be pertinent for schools to consider whether this is something they can run safely too, in order to ensure that staff are able to deal with behaviour swiftly and effectively.
4. “Some pupils will return to school having been exposed to a range of adversity and trauma…with increased welfare and safeguarding risks”
Pastoral care needs to be at the heart of behaviour management in September. Pastoral teams will have been working hard with families during the school closures, but there will, inevitably, be issues that only show themselves once students are back in school.
We need to be mindful of behavioural changes students demonstrate and ensure that pastoral care is in place, especially when students may be acting out of character.
That said, there will, naturally, be some new “red lines” in schools, such as a refusal to follow safety procedures, spitting or any other deliberate acts, which seek to weaponise or induce fear related to Covid-19.
Clear examples of these acts need to be shared and the significant consequences of such behaviours made clear.
It is vital that the right staff are dealing with these issues, so that swift but thorough assessment can be made of whether there are pastoral issues beneath the surface of these behaviours. It is important that schools get the right balance with this - there can be no excuse for behaviour that endangers the safety of others.
Amy Forrester is a Tes behaviour columnist, English teacher and director of pastoral care (key stage 4) at Cockermouth School in Cumbria
