Reconnecting behaviour and learning Discipline and authority in schools – a bumpy ride. When is enough enough and when is it too much? When practices run counter to what we know from recent research evidence on educating children with individual needs, differences and diversity, we need to look closely at what’s going on. From Jonathan Haidt and Pamela Paresky quoted n the Guardian recently: “ […]
Are behaviour and learning two different things? Most schools for many years have been treating them as if they are, with one policy for Learning and another for Behaviour. We talk about Behaviour Management as if it were a thing, but we don’t talk about Learning Management. Instead we refer to Teaching and Learning for everything across the broad curriculum except for that big […]
A limited spaces online course with direct access to the author. ‘Solutions Focused Coaching for Students’ UK Pilot Online Course 2019 A partnership between Dr. Geoffrey James of Action Against Exclusion and Nick Burnett of Next Level Greatness Why take the course? Managing the behaviour of some children and young people can be difficult, time-consuming and ultimately self-defeating if the last resort is exclusion […]
I can’t remember being punished when I was little. Maybe because I wasn’t. Nursery school was stuck together with Tapwata glue and story time, primary school was open fires in the winter and playing outside in summer, with the first stirrings of maths and latin. Presumably I wasn’t in need of punishment to make me a better small person. But secondary school was something […]
Exclusion is a dark corner of educational practice. It’s been frequently in the news this year because supposedly high-performing schools across the country are gaming the system by excluding students who don’t jump the performance bar. One Select Committee report “Forgotten children; alternative provision and the scandal of ever increasing exclusions” shines a bright light on what’s going wrong and another Committee “The Government’s Green […]
‘Dumping grounds’ Under this headline Martin George, (6th February 2018 TES) summarised evidence presented to The Commons Education Select Committee at the second evidence session for its inquiry into alternative provision. In brief; *Internal exclusion units in schools can be misused. Professor Gillies gave evidence of units governed by school policy that specified a four to six week intervention period where students may be retained for long […]
Essex County Council Childrens Social Care Academy & the Divisional Based Intervention Service This first of its kind conference is being held in Colchester, Essex On Friday 9th February 2018 from 09.30am – 4.30pm The aim of the conference is to: ð Share good practice and positive outcomes using Solution Focused Practice ð Promote use of Solution Focused Practice in a range of contexts […]
(1000 words) Four questions; 1) Behaviour management. Is behaviour really so separate from the rest of children’s learning and children so incapable that it requires us to abandon teaching and manage it? 2) Behaviour policies. Are behaviour and learning so far apart from each other that a school must have separate behaviour and learning policies? 3) Reliance on punishment in schools. Are punishment and coercion […]
Reported rates of exclusion are rising inexorably, by as much as 300% in some areas of England. It’s the ‘last resort’ of the behaviour management approach most schools are advised to use. Exclusion is producing a growing strain on limited cash and resources in the education system. There is also an inevitable human cost as school staff find themselves unable to alter the behaviour of […]
“For action, we need hope. For hope, action.” New year 2016 2016 began with reports of a rising tide of mental distress among children and staff in schools, sustained and rising rates of exclusion, divergent calls for draconian action against children cast as offenders on one hand and for innovation in support of the same children in response to their needs on the other. […]
