Research School Network: Keeping the behaviour method strong and simple Our main behaviour strategy is keep the message strong and simple!

Henley Bank High School, Gloucester

Our main behaviour strategy is keep the message strong and simple!

Henley Bank High School is a secondary school located in the town of Brockworth on the edge of Gloucester. It has just shy of 500 students with a Pupil Premium rate of 41% and 32% SEN. 

The challenge we faced at Henley Bank, in terms of behaviour, was quite simple. Behaviour was undermining learning. We needed to shift it and shift it fast. 

The EEF Behaviour Guidance Report suggests a number of approaches which are mirrored in our approaches. Recommendation 2 highlights the importance of helping students to understand the learning process and of ensuring they can access the curriculum. With this in mind, we picked up on the concept of working memory and how it might affect our students’ behaviour. We wanted to ensure that the entirety of a student’s working memory could be focused on the learning and not consumed by other activities. Therefore, we rationalised our behaviour policy to make it simpler and thus reduce the cognitive load, leaving more space for the all-important learning.

This approach was further supported by Recommendation 4 which highlights the power of simplicity and routine and the importance of the school behaviour policy being clear and consistently applied. This ties in with the final and underlying recommendation in the guidance, Recommendation 6, which says that ​‘Consistency is key’. This was reflected in our own experience as a school and so we adopted a behaviour policy that was not just simpler but more centralised. The simpler approach was very clear to students and thus made it easier for staff to be consistent in its application. The centralised approach meant that though staff were responsible for the initial application of it, the follow up was carried out by our dedicated behaviour team. As well as supporting consistency, this approach gave time back to teachers that they could then dedicate to improving their teaching which links back to Recommendation 2.

Although we valued simplicity, we were at the same time conscious of Recommendation 5 which highlights the importance of reasonable adjustments and so we built our policy to ensure that the needs of individual children were accounted for. This was made easier by the choice of a centralised approach because the dedicated Behaviour Team had the bandwidth, expertise and resources to deliver a more customised response while still maintaining an overall sense of consistency.

The importance of consistency was further reflected in our decision to provide carefully designed training to all staff. Staff received two days intensive training, led by SLT, prior to the students returning to school. This way we could be confident that they not only knew and understood the behaviour policy but that they had the skills to implement it. This decision is supported by Recommendation 3 which highlights both the impact staff will have on student behaviour through their classroom management and the need to adequately train staff.

Having begun this process in January 2018, we are pleased to report that our efforts have had a positive impact. Not only has there been a significant reduction in both exclusions and Alternative Provision referrals, but lesson observations show much higher levels of attentiveness in lessons and a much more positive learning climate across the school.

Nonetheless, we are very ambitious for our students and there are always more gains to be won. Consequently, we are now looking at how we can improve teacher instruction and checking for understanding to ensure our teaching is more responsive and thus to enhance further the positive learning behaviours of students in Henley Bank.

Robbie Foran