Behaviour in Wales: Good practice in managing challenging behaviour

The purpose of this report is to provide advice to the Welsh Assembly Government on good practice in managing pupils’ behaviour that challenges schools. The advice contributes to raising standards and quality in education and training and supports the Welsh Assembly Government’s commitment to social inclusion and equal opportunities as set out in ‘The Learning Country’ in August 2001.

The report:
• identifi es examples of good practice in managing behaviour in schools;
• highlights some of the measures local authorities take to support schools in managing behaviour;
• notes some of the partnership working that is helping to improve pupils’ behaviour; and
• helps to inform the Welsh Assembly Government’s promotion of emotional wellbeing and mental health of pupils.

Main findings

• The behaviour of a very large majority of children in schools in Wales is good or better. Good behaviour is most prevalent in schools where teachers deliver interesting lessons that offer suffi cient challenge.

• Improving pupils’ behaviour often requires schools and local authorities to work closely with other partners and agencies, particularly when the behaviour stems from pupils’ home circumstances.

• Joint working within some local authorities is beginning to make a difference in assisting joint budget planning between health and education services. Joint planning of this kind can ensure that decisions that have resource implications regarding vulnerable children and young people are made in collaboration. This often makes effective use of tri-partite funding arrangements.

• In general, agencies are not collaborating well enough to ensure that pupils’ needs are being met effectively and to address the circumstances that give rise to diffi cult behaviours.

• Many authorities have not yet developed effective links between school improvement services and special educational needs/behaviour services.

• Schools do not always pay enough attention to the correlation between pupils’ behaviour and their educational achievement.

• Schools that adopt and successfully implement a whole-school approach to behaviour have the most positive impact.

• Most teachers are becoming better at managing pupils’ behaviour and creating a good atmosphere in their classroom. In some schools, a small number of pupils regularly disrupt lessons. The proportion of primary schools where this happens is very small indeed, but it affects a far larger proportion of secondary schools. In the schools concerned, some pupils are too talkative, avoid work and disrupt the learning of others. This type of low-level disruption can be very difficult for teachers to manage. Incidents of extremely challenging behaviour are very rare.

• There have been improvements in assessing pupils’ needs over the past fi ve years. However, around 40% of primary schools still do not use assessment information well enough to set work that matches pupils’ different needs and abilities.

• The summary found that schools and local authorities are making use of a plethora of approaches in projects to support and improve the
management of challenging behaviour. There is compelling evidence of the usefulness of these in improving the behaviour and well-being
of pupils.

2006