Behaviour Management
Positive Behaviour for Learning
Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) initiatives help parents, whānau, teachers, early childhood centres, schools and kura address behaviour, improve children’s well-being, and increase educational achievement.
By strengthening relationships and creating more positive home and school environments, we remove barriers to engagement and improve students’ chances to achieve at school and beyond.
PB4L is a systematic approach involving a suite of initiatives. These include universal whole-school change initiatives, targeted group programmes, and individual student support services.
It’s not about changing the students; it’s about changing the environment, systems, and practices you have in place to support them to make positive behaviour choices.
All we do is behaviour. We find patterns of behaviour that allows us to reach our goals. We repeat what works, and when actions are repeated we begin to form links and habits to our behaviour.
At St Johns Hill School we adopt a common language and approach across the entire school. We use our four school values; Kaitiakitanga, Manaakitanga, Rangatiratanga and Kotahitanga to guide our expected behaviour within school.
All behaviour stems from our desire to obtain something or avoid something.
ESSENTIAL BEHAVIOUR PRINCIPLES
- All we do is behave.
- Behaviour must be observable and measurable.
- Behaviour tends to be triggered by an ‘event’ around (or in) us.
- Behaviour is purposeful and depends on the context and the person’s behaviour skill set.
- Behaviour is controlled (weakened or reinforced) by what happens after it (consequences)
- Managing challenging behaviour is often unsuccessful because we try to manage the form
(what) of the behaviour rather than its function (why).
- We can never directly manage or control another’s behaviour. We can only influence it by:
- Adjusting the context
- Improving the skill set
We need to understand the WHY of the behaviour.
It is also important to note that we DO NOT use a punishment approach at SJHS, rather we use consequences and there are clear differences between the two.
PUNISHMENTS (contain a few, some or all of the following features) | CONSEQUENCES (when done right has all these features) |
Unreasonable | Reasonable |
Disproportionate | Proportionate |
Unrelated to the choice / behaviour | Related to the choice / behaviour. |
Decisions are not explained | Decisions are explained |
An expectation that punishment is all that should be required to change behaviour’ | An expectation that consequences alone are ineffective and just one of a number of necessary strategies |
No attempt is made to understand the behaviour or to prevent reoccurrence. | An attempt is made to understand the behaviour and methods such as restorative practice are used to help prevent reoccurrence |
Designed to establish the power of the teacher | Designed to to communicate reasonable limit setting |
Aim is for teachers to ‘win’ | Aim is for an eventual teacher / student ‘win-win’ |
Punishments end up breaking down relationships | Reasonable consequences help to build up relationships |
Retribution is the aim | Retribution does not enter the teacher’s mind. |
At St Johns Hill School we adopt a Restorative Practice approach to behavioural issues and conflict resolution. We will teach the accepted behaviours with integrity and dignity.
