Transcript Developmental Management Coolaroo South Primary School

Developmental Management
Improving Behaviour
Coolaroo South Primary School
Jan Ferguson 2009
Coolaroo South Primary School
 Families come from diverse backgrounds and
experiences
 Refugees
 Some Preps come to school
without little or no English,
not literate in home language
and some that don’t speak at all
 High SFO .79
Our journey … … … …
Ramon Lewis visited CSPS in April.
Observed behaviours in classrooms
 Spoke to teachers, students, office staff, parents,
school councillors
 Met with the leadership team

From this day spent
with us he made some
recommendations.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Increase the emphasis on the idea that the need to
protect student and teacher rights (to learning, and
emotional and physical safety) is why students
should behave appropriately. This may assist in
encouraging students to transfer their appropriate
behaviour to situations where their classroom
teacher is not present (CRT’s or Specialists).
Classroom teachers can explain their interest in how
their class behaves when they are not present as an
assessment of how responsible rather than,
obedient, the children are.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In general there is a need to provide more
visual references to rights, responsibilities,
hints etc, in classrooms, corridors and the yard
to assist the memory of the more challenging
(visual) students.
There is the possibility of using more visual
and non-verbal hints like bells, claps, whistle,
signs, etc.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Avoid use of the word ‘rules’.
Teachers’ language needs to be more
appropriate. They should separate their
disapproval of behaviour that fails to respect
rights, from the student exhibiting that
behaviour (e.g. Ahmed, I like you, but when
you push people they could get hurt. If you do
it again I will need to send you to ‘time-out’).
RECOMMENDATIONS
Some teachers may like to consider using
exiting as a form of “time-out, whereby the
student is asked to return “when he or she is
prepared to act in a responsible/fair/reasonable
manner, but not before”. Time out may be
followed up with detention exiting (til the end
of a given period of time).
RECOMMENDATIONS
Provide some recognition to the student who
has misbehaved before exiting them from the
class.
Dependency on rewards should be minimised
and should focus on rewarding student effort
for personal and communal behavior. One way
to do this could be students recognizing other
students when they are acting responsible.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Try to modify the curriculum offered to
challenging students to focus on their interests
and competencies, and thereby provide more
opportunity for success. It will need to be
more relevant, and more visual and/or
kinaesthetic.
Rights for students and teachers
at Coolaroo South PS
• Everyone has the right to feel safe.
• Everyone has the right to feel good about
themselves.
• Everyone has the right to learn.
In our playground
Everyone has the
right to feel safe.
Everyone has the
right to feel good
about themselves.
... Learn
Having the right to learn
means, everybody is
contributing to group work,
and letting everybody
concentrate by helping them or
being quiet.
...Feel safe
...Feel good about themselves
Curriculum Day
Whole staff including ESOs and kindergarten
staff participated in half curriculum day in June.
 Rated student behaviour
 What specific behaviours do we see around
the school?
 Shared our unpacking of the rights
 Looked at readings from Ramon’s book
Built guiding principles for a statement about Behaviour
management
 Developed a draft of a process for managing
misbehaviours to trial.
The Process of Managing Behaviour
Step 1 – Language of the rights
Non verbal hinting.
Verbal hinting.
…then, if necessary
Step 2 – Reminders and choices
Restate and provide warning.
You
Remind child about the rights.
Identify behaviour and impact.
eg. “David, when you walk around the room and
interrupt Nathan you are distracting him
from his learning. Please sit down.
eg. “I reminded you about that behaviour.
are affecting others’ right to learn. This is a
warning. If you wish to discuss it, we can do
so at recess/lunchtime. Please return to your
seat.”
…then, if necessary
Make a choice.
eg. “David you have a choice. Either you
stop interrupting us and get on with your
work, or, you cannot stay with the group.
You will need to work over here.”
Student behaves appropriately.
Step 3 - Exits
Internal exit - direct child to designated spot.
Student re assesses their behaviour and
returns to more acceptable behaviour.
If student refuses to move:
eg. “I don’t intend to force you, but if you don’t
move then we will need to talk about it at
recess/lunchtime.”
If student refuses to move and misbehaviour
continues, you need to call for back up.
…then, if necessary
External exit - to another class or admin area, if
behaviour continues after student has returned to the
group.
Student returns and apologises.
This should be for a
given time, or in
some cases when the
student has decided
they are ready.
NB:
Record all exits and follow up
with student privately.
Visual clues and
hints promoting
positive behaviour
have popped up
around the school
throughout the year.
Staff discussion
What do we do to encourage positive student
behaviour?
 Points systems, rewards and privileges
 Responsibilities, monitors, free time,
choice
 Praise
 Team work
 Discussion at the beginning and end of
day
 Building self image
 Showing an interest in their lives, … …
 Engaging curriculum
Follow up session about the “process”
Much discussion, lots of “feeling” about how
well others were managing or not managing the
agreed process.
All the positives and concerns were recorded.
Many of the concerns were timing issues.
From these concerns we wrote a “Guidelines”
document to assist teachers.
This list of concerns gives us the items for
further discussion at staff meetings – one at a
time, short and direct. Keeps any ‘personal’
feelings at bay.
This week’s session
Unpacked “what to say and do” when sending
or receiving a student (exit).
Discussed:
What are we recording?
Who are we exiting?
What about in specialist classes?
Behaviour process for the yard.
Where to now?
Lots of clarifying still to come:
 Readings – how to follow up with exited
students… what to say

Records of exits

Communal right protection

Engaging curriculum

Developing relationships

Long journey, small steps

Often gets worse before it gets better

Between classroom differences

New staff in 2010 – inductions , processes to
start from day one – consistency
Everyone on board to improve the school culture.
 Way we all
talk about and to our kids in our school,
promote the adult-to-adult talk with them,
care for them unconditionally,
have faith in them,
 Curriculum we provide for
our students
 Partnerships we encourage
with their families