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Behaviour and Discipline in Schools

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Behaviour and Discipline in Schools House of Commons Education Committee Behaviour and discipline in schools Written evidence – Web Volume 1 List of written evidence Volume I 1 DEA 1 2 John Bangs 3 3 Zacchaeus 2000 Trust 8 4 Alison Peacock, Cambridge Primary Review and The Wroxham Primary School, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire 15 5 Professor Stephen Gorard 21 6 National Union of Teachers (NUT) 27 7 Demos 34 8 Jeff Hardman, Director, European Education Consultants Ltd 41 9 Incorporated Society of Musicians 42 10 Dr Sue Roffey 44 11 Jackie Deasey 49 12 Dr Simon Gibbs 50 13 The Adolescent and Children’s Trust (TACT) 54 14 Dr Jeremy Swinson 62 15 Dominic Boddington, Respect4us 66 16 John Corrigan, Director, Group 8 Education 70 17 David Wright 77 18 Professor David Foxcroft, Professor of Community Psychology and Public Health, Oxford Brookes University 78 19 Helen Earl, Educational Psychology and Behaviour Support Team Children’s Services, Cumbria County Council 80 20 Dr Richard Crombie, Specialist Senior Educational Psychologist: Social and Emotional Development 83 21 Edison Learning 86 22 Food For Life Partnership 91 23 Fiona Wallace, Head of Behaviour Support Service, Link Centre 102 24 The National Association of Social Workers in Education (NASWE) 104 25 Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England 111 26 National Children’s Bureau 119 27 Institute of Education 124 28 National Association of Head Teachers 135 29 Association of School and College Leaders 140 30 YoungMinds 147 31 Liz Vickerie, Head of Support for Learning, and Kerrigen Marriner, Head of Behaviour Support, London Borough of Tower Hamlets 154 32 SHS 158 33 Rob Gasson, Senior Manager, Additional Education Provision, Children, Schools and Families, Cornwall County Council 165 34 Research in Practice 171 35 Youth Justice Board for England and Wales 176 36 Joint Epilepsy Council 180 37 Croydon Department of Children, Young People and Learners 186 38 Department for Education 191 39 British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy 201 40 TreeHouse 203 41 Telford and Wrekin and Shropshire Educational Psychology Service 212 42 The Association of Directors of Children’s Services Ltd (ADCS) 217 43 Granada Learning 221 44 Children’s Food Campaign 226 45 Oxfordshire County Council 231 46 The Runnymede Trust 240 47 Marlborough Family Education Service 247 48 I CAN 252 49 Association of Teachers and Lecturers 256 50 The Association of Education Psychologists 265 51 NASUWT 272 52 School Food Trust 285 53 Teacher Support Network 287 54 Special Educational Consortium 293 55 Kent County Council 301 56 Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education 306 57 Buckinghamshire County Council 311 58 West Sussex Educational Psychology Service 318 59 Pearson 320 60 Anti-Bullying Alliance 323 61 National Governors’ Association 330 Volume II 62 Children’s Rights Alliance 332 63 The National Autistic Society 338 64 Southampton Psychology Service, Southampton City Council 348 65 Voice: the Union for Education Professionals 351 66 Barnardo’s 357 67 Advisory Centre for Education 364 68 Paul Bird 373 69 NFER 374 70 Birmingham Educational Psychology Service 385 71 Ofsted 389 72 National Strategies 400 73 Dr Heather Geddes, UKCP Reg Educational Psychotherapist, The Caspari Foundation 408 74 Parentline Plus 411 75 The British Psychological Society 414 76 Supplementary memorandum submitted by the British Psychological Society 427 77 Tom Burkard 432 78 Carl Parsons, Visiting Professor of Educational and Social Inclusion, Centre for Children, Schools and Families, University of Greenwich 443 79 Catch22 453 80 ContinYou 457 81 Dr David L Moore CBE 460 82 Youth Sport Trust 463 83 Anita Kerwin-Nye, Director, The Communication Trust 469 84 Professor Judy Hutchings and Dr Tracey Bywater on behalf of the Incredible Years Wales (IYW) Team, Bangor University 470 1 Memorandum submitted by DEA About DEA DEA is an education charity that promotes global learning. We work to ensure that people in the UK learn about global issues such as poverty and climate change and develop an open-minded, global outlook. DEA defines global learning as education that puts learning in a global context, fostering: • critical and creative thinking; • self-awareness and open-mindedness towards difference; • understanding of global issues and power relationships; and • optimism and action for a better world. DEA is a membership body, with over 150 organisational members including subject associations, universities, local authorities and many development and environment NGOs in the UK. Analysis and recommendations 1. How to support and reinforce positive behaviour in schools 1.1 A wide range of strategies and activities have been shown to support and reinforce positive behaviour in schools. Given our area of expertise, we focus on the impact that global learning has on attendance and behaviour. 1.2 Research from the Department for Education (DfE), Ofsted, DEA and others highlights that learning about global issues such as poverty and sustainability encourages positive behaviour. 1.2.1 Research from DfE highlights that: “involving young people in discussions, decision-making and action to do with how the school and community responds to sustainability, provides a firm foundation for their future social participation and leadership, and results in improved behaviour.”1 1.2.2 Research from Ofsted states that: “learning about sustainability captures the interest of children and young people because they can see its relevance to their own lives.” Further to this Ofsted notes, “some school leaders identified links between particular pupils’ involvement in sustainable activities and improvement in their attitudes and behaviour generally.”2 1.2.3 Research from DEA finds that amongst those who have learnt about global issues in school, nine-in-ten are either involved in, or interested in getting involved in some form of positive social action, such as recycling or volunteering. However, amongst those who have not learnt about global issues a fifth are not interested in getting involved in any form of positive social action.3 1 DfE, 2010, The impact of sustainable schools, London:TSO 2 Ofsted, 2009, Education for sustainable development, Manchester:Ofsted 3 Hogg, Shah, 2010, The impact of global learning, London:DEA 2 1.3 As noted above by Ofsted and by others, one of the reasons that learning about global issues supports and reinforces positive behaviour is because it captures the interested of children and young people, who can see its relevance to their own lives. Research into young people’s views of the future finds strong evidence that, “regardless of age, the environment is a consistent theme in [young people’s] concerns about the future and that providing collaborative, positive and supportive learning environments is vital in helping students to raise and deal with their concerns.”4 1.4 Global learning can support and reinforce positive behaviour through an emphasis on critical and creative thinking, self-awareness and open-mindedness towards difference. In both formal and non-formal education contexts, these approaches help to build young people’s confidence, empathy and sense of social responsibility, all of which support and reinforce positive behaviours.5 1.5 This research offers a compelling picture that learning about global issues and sustainability can: engage young people in their education; improve attendance; and improve behaviour whilst at school. An approach that incorporates global learning is particularly beneficial because it is a preventative approach; rather than managing poor behaviour once it has arisen, offering opportunities for global learning can help to prevent poor behaviour becoming an issue in schools. August 2010 4 Hicks and Holden, 2007, cited in DfE, 2010, The impact of sustainable schools, London:TSO 5 See for example DEA, 2010, Connect, Challenge, Change: A practical guide to global youth work, London:DEA 3 Memorandum submitted by John Bangs INTRODUCTION 1. I was the Head of Education for the National Union of Teachers from 1993 to September 2010. One of my responsibilities was representing the NUT on the previous Government’s Ministerial Stakeholder Group for pupil behaviour. I thought it would be helpful, therefore, if I provided a personal commentary on particular aspects of issues around pupil behaviour. I have used the Select Committee’s specific issues framework for this letter. I retired in September this year, from the National Union of Teachers. I am taking up a number of new opportunities, including appointments at the Institute of Education, Cambridge University and a consultancy with Education International. THE SUBMISSION 2. There is a general consensus amongst teachers that it is low level disruption; (name calling, swearing, not paying attention, interrupting and fighting) which causes the greatest amount of stress. It is important to note that, although stress is acutely felt by teachers, the evidence from our own research on school self- evaluation shows that children not involved in such disruption are equally distressed, if not more so. Children and young people hate the fact that such disruption causes both boredom and frustration. 3. Up until 2002, when the NUT commissioned Warwick University to conduct a wide-ranging survey of teachers on pupil behaviour, it was clear that concerns about low level disruption had not altered since the publication of the Elton Report on Pupil Behaviour in 1989. Levels of such disruption had remained relatively constant. 4. What has changed since then are the nature and frequency of serious and violent behaviour. 5. The conclusion of the NUT’s 2008 follow-up study with Warwick University was that: “Some of the more serious problems, including abuse, damage to property and threats by parents, were encountered by fewer teachers and schools in 2008 than in 2001. However, these teachers and schools suffered such problems, more severely than they had in 2001.” 6. A further analysis suggested that it was male teachers who experienced a greater impact of this kind of behaviour. 7. The Warwick University study showed that for the majority of schools, the number of significant and serious incidents of misbehaviour are reducing, whereas for the minority, they are getting worse.
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