‘Let’s talk about Culture not Behaviour’

Dylan Wiliam. "Nothing works everywhere – everything works somewhere."

I love taking on a new class or year group as it is a chance to get to know a new group of students and start a journey which can change both of you forever. That may be a bit fanciful but there is something exciting about starting with a new group. We had Tom Bennett come in today to speak to us about behaviour and creating a culture. I had wanted to get my thoughts down on behaviour before this INSET but he definitely helped focus my attention and also give me a few things to think about in regards to creating a culture as opposed to focussing on a few skills to improve ‘Behaviour Management’.

I have been a HOY for five years now and have been lucky to have year groups that have had really low behaviour points both times. Some people have said that to me, but myself and the tutors have also put a lot of work into building a relationship and ethos/culture that helps keep the behaviour points down.

One colleague today said that behaviour management is the most important aspect of teaching, before you start all the pedagogy stuff and teaching and learning development you have to be good with behaviour management. I don’t necessarily agree with that, I think you need to develop both at the same time and the better teacher you are, the easier it is to manage behaviour but everyone is different and that is what I love about education, there is no right answer.

The main reason for writing this blog though was to reflect on my five years as a HOY, with three different year groups and consider after taking a year group through Year 11 and achieving a very high above average progress added how you can create a culture that promotes good behaviour.

How do you ensure low behaviour points and a focus on achievement?

It comes down to the start and what you are working towards. You first interactions with the students in assembly, around school and with every student sets the tone for how the students will interact with the school and the others in the community of the school. There will be incidents and they have be dealt with exactly the same as with every student whether it is the first time or it is their tenth, with professionalism and an approach which deters the behaviour but also builds towards what you want to achieve.  As Tom said today, you need everyone to buy into your ethos and your culture so you have to sell it to the students. Sell the dream, the goal of achieving and the key aspects which will make them achieve this.

My four principles for this year group have been: to be a good person, to learn from your mistakes, to challenge and work hard in what you do and to work with us.  They are four elements that I really value and even though they cover a lot of issues as a HOY, I think it is important you consider what are the principles, values that you value the most and sell them to students.

I have already met with my year team and discussed these key principles of the year team which they all bought into and so far have gone above and beyond to uphold them. I have promoted them in assemblies and linked every assembly to one, all or some of the key principles, reminding students of the values we value as a year group.

So far this has had a very positive effect and students who were previously an issue in Year 8 so far have kept their head down and bought into these values. As a result, I have ensured that there have been phone calls home to introduce myself but also praise them. There have still been incidents and no year group is perfect but each time there is an incident, either myself, my assistant head of year or tutor can revert back to the principles to re-sell the principles to the students to help them, learn and deter their behaviour.  We also have excellent processes in place such as our report system which escalates which helps support this process.

As a year group, we also decided to avoid another meeting talking about data and dedicated it to phoning parents and introducing ourselves as either the new form tutor or HOY. So far this has produced a lot of positive feedback and the tutors were very grateful for the time to put into their form group, a hard task when we have so many demands as teachers.

Another key reason our behaviour points stay low is my assistant head of year who is a non-teaching member of staff.  He is incredible consistent with his sanctions and he can often deal with minor incidents (squabbling and play fighting) without my involvement, actually he can deal with all of them without me and this enables us to look at the bigger picture together and discuss strategies and sanctions that will have the most effect.

I don’t want this to start becoming a list so am going to leave the blog there, there are so many other things we do as a school that ensures low behaviour points but to creating a culture in the early days of achievement is one of the most important and would urge any new head of years or troubled heads of year to consider the principles that matter the most to them, sell them to the year team and then maintain them.

By all means I am not an expert but I enjoy being reflective and you never know this might help someone else.

For more information about Tom Bennett’s work please search online for his new document on ‘Culture’.