School behaviour policy

Introduction

Developing a policy provides useful opportunities for discussion between governors, senior management, teaching staff, support staff, pupils, parents and the wider community. It is vitally important that the development of a policy reflects as consensual a view as possible so that the policy is "owned" by all parties affected by it.

The purpose of the document is to provide schools with an aide-memoire or template against which to review their existing behaviour policies and to guide their future development.

Each section of the document consists of a brief rationale and then a series of review questions to be asked of the existing or developing behaviour policy.

Why have behaviour policies?

There are five good reasons for using this framework to develop behaviour policies:

Benefits to pupils

Children and young people develop into responsible learners through living in an atmosphere, sometimes called school ethos, in which the rights and dignity of each individual is recognised and actively promoted. School policies define the entitlement of all pupils to be able to access the curriculum and their inclusion within the school community. For these reasons, behaviour policies need to relate to other policies dealing with issues of equal opportunity and inclusion such as, special educational needs, race and ethnicity, gender, class and with issues of bullying.