What was your school like before relational practice?
We currently have 230 children on roll. Whittington is not an area of significant social deprivation (21% disadvantaged), but the school is provided with the challenge of a large number of high-needs children, with complex and diverse needs, from a range of socio-economic backgrounds.
This is particularly true of those children with SEND (19% SEN/ 6% EHCP). In January 2019, we opened Shropshire’s first primary-focused Resourced Provision for up to ten learners with complex social and communication difficulties.
2016-
- Classes as Islands
Low-level disruption in most areas of school life
Lunchtime supervision was inconsistent
Vertical structure of authoritarian-style discipline
2016-2017 – 34 serious incidents in total
What triggered the change?
2016 – Carl Rogers appointed as HT
2018 – Read When The Adults Change, Everything Changes, Parklands visit (Chris Dyson), Piloted approaches with SLT
What were the expectations/hopes?
After lots of thought and discussion, we introduced or new Behaviour Policy, which was fully aligned with ‘When The Adults Change.’ We offered copious amounts of CPD for staff and were relentless in ensuring approaches were consistent across the school. Over time, standards of behaviour have improved and staff are considerably more skilled and empowered to manage behaviour.
What happened – what have you done, how did it pan out?
After lots of thought and discussion, we introduced or new Behaviour Policy, which was fully aligned with ‘When The Adults Change.’ We offered copious amounts of CPD for staff and were relentless in ensuring approaches were consistent across the school. Over time, standards of behaviour have improved and staff are considerably more skilled and empowered to manage behaviour.
What was easy, what was hard?
The hardest thing for us was managing perceptions and to be brave in adopting the approach. To some, the relational approaches appeared to be ‘soft’. To others, the non-hierarchical approach to managing behaviour could be seen as leadership absolving themselves of responsibility. We communicated very clearly about decisions being made and the rationale for them. The improvement in behaviour for groups and individuals proved that our way of working is effective.
What made our approach easier was having the framework of ‘When The Adults Change’ to work with. We bought a copy of the book for everyone and dog-eared copies are still carried around school!
Where are you now?
Staff are more empowered to work with unregulated behaviour and unregulated behaviour is contained without escalation more consistently.
Our three school rules, Meet and Greets, Check-ins, Pozzy notes, Recognition Systems, Scripted conversations and swift impositions are all embedded and fundamental aspects of our practice.
#TheWhittingtonWay
We are now welcoming visitors to our school regularly to see our way of working and to see relational approaches in action.
Don’t be afraid of being personal. Each child will require, and has the right to, individual treatment within an agreed framework.
Whatever is in policy has to be policed so think carefully about its design.
Be courageous. Using creativity and thinking counter-intuitively can make a huge difference to a child’s education.
Develop your own #TheWhittingtonWay. The way that we do it will not be the way that you do it.
Develop a clear philosophy that your team can buy into and be proud of.
Any other comments:
We’re very proud to be involved in this partner school project. Paul and the team have been entirely supportive of our efforts and we look forward to learning more from other wonderful schools!