Behaviour

Positive Behaviour and Rewards

St. John’s is a school with a Christian foundation and we welcome all children and adults into our community. We want our children, families and staff to know that they are valued, cared for and to be happy. We want our children to be passionate about learning and to equip them with the tools that will enable them to flourish academically, emotionally and spiritually.

We will:

• Get to know children well; fostering independence and developing confidence
• Encourage parents to work closely with us to nurture their children’s potential and to teach them values that underpin all of our relationships
• Provide a curriculum that is creative, engaging and inspiring
• Seek to meet the needs of all children by providing appropriate resources and opportunities
• Develop our staff in order that they might thrive

1 Corinthians 12 v 12 says, ‘there is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body.’

At St. John’s we have 3 school rules that help us to thrive:

Be kind

Be safe

Be responsible

Each term we focus on an aspect of one of these rules to improve the way we learn, care for one another and behave in school.

We also have 5 school values:

Respect

Inclusivity

Courage

Honesty

Empathy

These values underpin all that we do and as a whole school community we work hard to model these values at all times in our interactions with one another.

Positive Behaviour Management:

In line with our behaviour policy we constantly strive for excellent behaviour. We focus our energy on recognising and rewarding behaviour that is of the highest standard to promote an ethos of positive behaviour. We understand that consistency is key to this and all staff work to support children to make positive behaviour choices. We actively notice when children are behaving brilliantly and we recognise this through praise, certificates, dojos, feedback to parents and, in the most exceptional circumstances, through Hot Chocolate Monday!

We seek to develop intrinsic motivation, understanding this to be key to the future success of our children, but recognise the place for extrinsic motivators as outlined above also.

Our aim is to build a community based on kindness, respect and safety, enabling children and staff to be nurtured to reach their potential.

Rewards:

Our rewards seek to recognise effort as opposed to attainment and promote a ‘Growth Mindset’ and a ‘can do’ attitude towards learning.

· Positive verbal feedback from all staff and senior teachers

· Weekly certificates which are presented in assembly.

· Phone calls home made during the school day with the child present so the parents can also praise them.

· Class dojo with the winning class earning extra playtime or golden time

· Child earning the most dojo points per class per term wins a special badge in their house colour

· Children in the house winning the most dojo points per term may bring a small toy or game of their choice into school

· Hot Chocolate Monday – hot choccie with marshmallows (!) with Mr Turvey or Miss Stiff,  view more here

Sanctions:

Staff recognise that behaviour is a form of communication and will always strive to support those children who demonstrate challenging behaviour and struggle to follow the rules. For some children an individual behaviour plan will be necessary.

Following our behaviour code, where pupils make a poor choice staff will always try to support the child to understand what has gone wrong and help them to make positive choices. Staff use de-escalation techniques, focus on the behaviour and not the child and are aware of how they can help the child to make improvements to their behaviour. Where this is not successful, or there is a repeated pattern of poor behaviour choices, staff will seek support and advice from their phase teams, Assistant Heads, the Inclusion Team, the Senior Leadership Team and, where appropriate, external agencies. Parents will also be informed.

Where the actions of one child have hurt another, either emotionally or physically, staff will seek to adopt a restorative justice approach encouraging the relationship to be repaired. Staff will support the children involved and, in line with the Christian ethos of the school, will work towards resolution of the problem so that the relationship is restored and there is a sense of forgiveness.

View our behaviour policy here.