Rewards for good behaviour
Our reward system acknowledges and celebrates academic and pastoral achievements and positive behaviours. Positive recognition motivates pupils to observe our school rules and reach their full potential. Our focus is on:
- Positive achievements and behaviours.
- Raising self esteem.
- Creating a positive learning environment.
The individual rewards we operate are:
Star of the Day
Every class will choose a Star of the Day, with special stickers, badges, chair, cushion etc for the pupil that has been chosen each day.
STRIVE Certificates
There will be a weekly assembly in which good work and behaviour will be celebrated. Each Friday, each class teacher will choose a child who has achieved success or a child who has demonstrated one of our other STRIVE aims. Children will have the opportunity to share their work with the school, receive a certificate from the Head Teacher and have their photo displayed in the hall.
Parents/carers are invited to attend this assembly to celebrate the good work that takes place in our school.
Head Teacher’s Award
At the end of each term, one child from each class is chosen to receive the Head Teacher’s Award. This will be a child who always demonstrates our school aims. A child cannot receive the Head Teacher’s Award twice within two years.
The collaborative rewards we operate are:
Stand out moments
Stand out moments are awarded to individuals or groups of children when they are spotted to be displaying outstanding behaviour by any adult in school. We ask all of our staff and visitors to look out for and acknowledge stand out behaviour. If a stand out moment is awarded to an individual it is added to the class stand out tally chart. If it is awarded to a whole (or majority) class then 5 tallies are added to the chart.
The totals for the week are announced in celebration assembly each week. Instead of competing against the other classes in school, each class is working as a team to achieve a target score of 400 stand out moments. Once the class has achieved their target score, they receive a reward of their choice.
Restorative Justice (RJ)
We are aware that some pupils may need some extra support at a given time to follow our school rules. When providing this support, we must always remember that we want restitution not retribution, and reconciliation not revenge. We will create a supportive culture where all those affected by an incident are involved in finding a mutually acceptable way forward. RJ allows opportunities for pupils to reflect on, take responsibility for and learn from their own behaviours. During reflection, pupils will be encouraged to think about:
- How has your behaviour affected others?
- What could you have done differently?
- How can you make amends/move forward?
Consequences for inappropriate behaviour
We use a traffic light system, whereby all children start each day on green to track behaviour. Whilst in the green zone, children are able to earn classroom rewards. Children who excel can move into the Gold zone.
For a child who is choosing not to follow the school rules and is disrupting the learning of themselves or others, they will move from the green zone in a systematic way as follows:
- First warning, This may be a verbal reminder or you may move to the thinking bubble.
- Second warning – The child should be made aware that they have a chance to make a change and there is no consequence at this point. Move from green to amber. They may require some intervention from you to do this (support, move within class etc).
- Final warning, move from amber to red. Red should trigger a consequence – move to another room, time out to discuss incident at playtime with teacher etc.
- If a child is on red and continues to misbehave, they should receive time out in another class for the rest of that session with work to complete (this would be your parallel class where possible or Year 5 if the child is in Year 6, or F2 is the child is in Nursery)
In-line with our value of forgiveness, it should be made clear to children who are in the red zone what they can do to move back into the green zone. All children in the red zone will be spoken to before lunchtime (using restorative justice techniques) to review their morning and to set a goal to achieve that will enable them to move back up the traffic light as soon as possible after lunchtime. This will include showing an awareness of what they have done that is not in line with our rules, showing remorse for this and making a change to their behaviour.
For extreme behaviour or persistent low-level behaviour that has resulted in a child being in the red zone and making no change to their behaviour, a child will be given a detention to reflect on their actions and take time to think about how they can change their behaviour in future.
This involves missing all or part of their lunch playtime. Detention will be led by a member of the leadership team as soon as possible after the incident. A restorative justice reflection will be undertaken to avoid the behaviour being repeated in future.
In extreme cases, isolation with the Head or Deputy Head may be required. If this is the case, parents will be informed via a phonecall and when the other elements of this policy has been followed.
NB All children being sent to timeout or isolation must be accompanied by a member of staff (ideally a TA) and not by another child.
Exclusion
Bluecoat Academy is an inclusive school where we value all children and believe they are all entitled to experience success at our school. Nevertheless, repeated or very serious incidents of unacceptable behaviour may in certain circumstances lead to a period of fixed term exclusion from school. Extremely serious misbehaviour may lead to permanent exclusion.