National BehaviourSupport Service

Promoting Positive Behaviour

SDPI23rd June 2009

NBSS

The NBSS is working with 62 post primary

schools identifying, developing and

disseminating current good practice and

assisting with behaviour issues which

impede teaching and learning.

National Behaviour Support Service

Mission Statement

Learning to behave and behaving to learn.

The work of the support service is groundedin evidence based practice and provides asystemic continuum of support to schoolcommunities.

NBSS Guiding Principles

The NBSS is guided by the following key principles -:

Schools can make a difference in young people’s lives.

• A whole school approach, founded on respectful relationships, is essential in promoting and supporting positive behaviours throughout the school community.

• Behaviour is intrinsically linked to teaching and learning.

• Inclusion is a core educational value.

• Good practice in schools is acknowledged and disseminated.

NBSS Team

• National Coordinator

• 4 Assistant National Coordinators

• 11 Regional Development Officers

• Literacy Development Officer

• Research & Development Officer

• 2 Administrators

Positive Behaviour Support Programmes

• Framework for Intervention (FFI) – Birmingham, Scotland, Norway

• Restorative Approach – Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, North America, Sligo and Donegal

• Solution Oriented School Programme (SOS) – Scotland, Jersey, United Kingdom attendance and behaviour strategy

• School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) – North America, Canada, Australia

Positive Behaviour Support Programmes (cont’d)

• Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) – North America, Europe, Asia

• Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) – DCSF, England

NBSS Model of Support

Level OneWhole School

School System

Vision Systems Structures Policies Practises

Behaviour Support Classrooms

Definition:

An intensive, short-term, individualised school based intervention for students who consistently do not respond to alternative interventions and supports provided in the school.

Behaviour Support Classrooms

• Provide an academic, social and emotional, behavioural curriculum for students whose behaviour significantly interferes with teaching and learning in the majority of their subject classes.

• The fundamental aim of a BSC is reintegration

Academic Systems Behavioural Systems

1-5% 1-5%

5-10% 5-10%

80-90% 80-90%

Intensive, Individual Interventions•Individual Students•Assessment-based•High Intensity

Intensive, Individual Interventions•Individual Students•Assessment-based•Intense, durable procedures

Targeted Group Interventions•Some students (at-risk)•High efficiency•Rapid response

Targeted Group Interventions•Some students (at-risk)•High efficiency•Rapid response

Universal Interventions•All students•Preventive, proactive

Universal Interventions•All settings, all students•Preventive, proactive

Designing School-Wide Systems for Student Success

Schimmer & Sugai, Nov. 2003

Current NBSS Interventions(additional to Level 1,2,3)

• Occupational Therapy

• Positive Behaviour Liaison (PBL)

• Solution Oriented Schools (SOS)

• Literacy

• EaSEL – Emotional and Social Elements of Learning

A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.

He notices, however, that all the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small mistake in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies

The head monk says, “ We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point my son”

He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the originals have been kept for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.

So the young monk gets worried and goes to look for him.

He sees him banging his head on the wall and wailing.

“We got it wrong…… it’s all wrong……. Waaah”

“What is wrong father?”, the boy asks

With a choking voice the old abbot replies “The word was …………..”

CELEBRATE!!!

Nine Contextual Factors that Contribute to Punitive School Environments and

Promote Antisocial Behaviour• Low student involvement in school activities• Unclear rules for student deportment• Weak or inconsistent administrative support• Student academic failure• Student deficiency in social & personal management

skills• Problems discriminating prosocial & antisocial

behaviour• Consequences delivered inconsistently• Inadvertent reinforcement of antisocial behaviour• Over reliance on punitive methods of control (Mayer, 1995; Similar to home-based contextual factors noted by Loeber, Stouthammer-Loeber & Green, 1987 and Reid & Patterson, 1991), Hattie,

J., 2003

School Culture

Present Reality

• The behaviour of a very large majority of pupils remains satisfactory or better

• Most schools are successful at managing behaviour and creating an environment in which pupils feel valued, cared for and safe

• The most common form of poor behaviour is persistent low-level disruption of lessons that wears down staff and interrupts learning.

Source: ‘School Matters’ 2006,Ofsted 2006

“Stop asking me if we’re almost there ~ we’re Nomads, for crying out loud.”

People see change as an event: “But we just changed last year.”

Facilitating change

40%

30%

15%

15%

15 – technique 15 - reputation 30 - relationship 40 - strengths focused

Lambert, 1992

Continuous Professional Development

However noble, sophisticated or enlightened proposals for change and improvement might be, they come to nothing if teachers don’t accept them in their own classrooms and if they don’t translate them into effective classroom practise.

Fullan M, Hargreaves A. (1982)

“The belief that one’s own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions”

Paul Watzlawick (1921 - 2007)

Most Successful Strategies for Improving Behaviour

• Schools recognised that behaviour issues would not be resolved by just updating discipline policies

• Behaviour was tackled as part of a wider school improvement strategy

• Schools promoted honesty, ownership, teamwork

Source: Ofsted inspections of 35 schools in 2005 and 2006

What is Behaviour?

• Behaviour is anything a person does which can be observed

• Behaviour has to be learned so is taught• Everyone can learn new behaviour• Behaviour which has been rewarded is more

likely to be repeated• Behaviour is influenced by what happens before

it and what happens after it.

Source: South Eastern Education Library Board 2006

Some Solution Oriented Principles

1. If it works, do more of it; if it does not work, do

something different

2. A small change in any aspect of a problem can

initiate a solution

3. A focus on possibilities and solutions enhances

change

4. No sign up – no change

5. Co-operation enhances change

Solution Focused Meetings• F Focus Focus on what you want to be different

• O Outcomes Describe the desired outcomes in detail

• R Realised Describe results already realized

• W When When did similar successes already happen

• A Action One small step forward

• R Results Monitor for achievements of new results

• D Desire Make desire for further change explicit

Effective System

Work on, not in a system

• Visual - What will it look like?

• Emotional - What will it feel like?

• Functional - What will it act like?

Cloward and Ohlin’s Strain Model

Anticipation of

failure

FavourableComparisonof Abilities

Visible BarriersTo

Opportunities

ExternalBlame

DelinquentPeers

Legitimacyof Alternative

Norms

DelinquentActivities

Literacy, Learning and Behaviour

• Many students with poor literacy skills exhibit significant behavioural and academic problems also.

• Pupils entering secondary school in the UK, with very poor

literacy skills, were five times more likely to be excluded from school and four times more likely to truant than pupils without literacy difficulties

[Sources: (DfES Literacy Strategy (1997); Fleming, Harachi, Cortes, Abbott & Catalano, 2004; Larsen, Steele, & Sailor (2004); KPMG Foundation, (2006); Morrison, Anthony, Storino, & Dillon, 2001; Murdock, Anderman, and Hodge (2000); Nelson, Benner, Lane, & Smith, (2004) Roeser, Eccles & Sameroff, 2000; Tobin & Sugai, 1999).]

NBSS Literacy Research

• Research carried out by the NBSS in 2007/2008 on literacy levels amongst students (chronologically aged 12 to 15 years) exhibiting disruptive behaviours found that –

• Only 3.65% were reading at their chronological age.

• The average reading age was 9 years with some students reading at 6 years

Henefer, 2008

NBSS Literacy StrategyIndependent reading, thinking, learning

• Significantly increase daily instruction time for literacy

• Build in opportunities for students to experience success

• Provide continuous CPD in literacy teaching and learning

• Develop an individual plan, in partnership with relevant school personnel, for each student regardless of reading ability

NBSS Literacy Strategy (cont’d.)

• Have a Core Literacy Curriculum - Word knowledge - Fluency - Comprehension - Writing

• Complete all sections of individual literacy programmes

• Use assessment and evaluation tools

Long-term specialist tuition is more effective than eclectic or short-term approaches

Student Behaviour

Can- but don’t choose to

Can- but loose it whenlife gets too much

Can’t – don’t know how

Would we like to see these skills in the classroom?

• Personal responsibility • Resilience • Confidence • Optimism • Self awareness • Self discipline • Courage • Co-operation and communication • Goals for life.

What Does SEL Address?

social & emotional learning

Self-awareness

Social awareness

Relationship Skills

Responsible decision-making

Self-management

Forming positive relationships, working in teams, dealing

effectively with conflict

Making ethical, constructive

choices about personal and social behaviour

Managing emotions andbehaviours to

achieve one’s goals

Showing understanding and empathy for others

Recognizing one’s emotions and values as well as one’s strengths

and limitations

Critical Social Skills(The Most Important Ones)

• Following Instructions

• Accepting Teaching

• Disagreeing Appropriately

• Accepting “No” for an Answer

• Getting the Teacher’s Attention (or Asking Permission)

• Making a Request

• Greeting Someone

Other Important Social Skills

• Giving Negative Feedback• Resisting Peer Pressure (Saying “No”)• Apologizing• Engaging in a Conversation• Giving a Compliment• Accepting a Compliment• Volunteering• Reporting Peer behaviour• Introducing Yourself

Teaching Social Skills• Social skills should be taught by the same

procedures and principles used to teach academic skills.

• There is a direct, positive relationship between the amount and quality (integrity) of social skills training and change in social behaviour.

• Social skills training should be supplemented by behavioural rehearsal opportunities, performance feedback, and contingency systems in naturalistic settings to promote their occurrence, fluency, and mastery.

Walker, Ramsey, & Gresham, 2004

“If a child doesn’t know how to read, we teach.”

“If a child doesn’t know how to swim, we teach.”

“If a child doesn’t know how to multiply, we teach.”

“If a child doesn’t know how to behave, we…

...teach? …punish?”

“Why can’t we finish the last sentence as automatically as we do

the others?”Tom Herner (NASDE President ) Counterpoint 1998, p.2

Encouraging Positive Behaviour

• Structure

• Predictability

• Consistency of approach

• Firm but fair management

RULES

and

ROUTINES

Consistency

Preliminary findings from a survey conducted by the NBSS on Low Level Disruption found that only 5.8% of the 982 respondents agreed that school rules are “enforced consistently by all staff”, 47% stating that enforcement was “consistent most of the time”, with 43.2% reporting that consistency ranges from “some of the time” to “never”.

Henefer, 2007-2008

RE

Art

Home Ec

Wood Tech

Business

SPHE CSPE

Science

Geog

History

Maths

Irish

English

Student

Consistency

Inconsistency

RE

Art

Home Ec

Wood Tech

Business

SPHE CSPE

Science

Geog

History

Maths

Irish

English

Student

Communication During Times Of Crisis

FACIAL + TONE OF + WORDS

EXPRESSION VOICE

55% 38% 7%

Emotional

arousal

Decreased reasoning skills

Escalation and Cognition

Mapping of Acting Out Behaviour

Thinking Feeling

Doing Physiology

Teaching Class Rules

• Clearly written• Few in number• Essential• Enforceable• Enforced• Visible• Positively Phrased• Teachable

Sanctions as an Intervention

• Punishment alone will not lead to a durable change in behaviour. (Braaten, 1994)

• Reactive strategies that rely primarily on punishment assume that individuals know what is expected, how to do it, and are properly motivated. Unfortunately it fails to teach the expected behaviour (Horner & Sugai 1999)

• Some forms of punishment may actually be rewarding and maintaining problem behaviours. (Gresham, 1991; March & Horner, 2002)

Battle Zone or Learning Zone

Tim O’Brien 1998

Rewards

“ Where good behaviour is reinforced and acknowledged, it is more likely that it will become internalised. Public acknowledgement of positive student behaviour also helps to promote a sense of community within a school.”School Matters. The report of the Task Force on Student Behaviour in Second Level Schools (2006) p. 75

Using Consequences

• Make it clear that you are against the behaviour not the person.

• Avoid early escalation to severe sanctions, reserving them for the most serious misbehaviour.

• Avoid whole group sanctions that punish the innocent as well as the guilty.

• Take account of individual circumstances.• Encourage students to reflect on the effects of

misbehaviour.

Consequences

• Logical – appropriate to the behaviour• Directed at the behaviour• Predictable• Fair• Consistent• Immediate

Principles Underpinning C.O.B.

Ensure:• A climate that encourages and reinforces good

behaviour.

• A positive and safe environment for teaching and learning.

• Positive relationships of mutual respect and support among students, staff and parents.

• That behavioural expectations are known and understood.

(NEWB p.22/23)

Student Engagement10 As

• A1 Atmosphere• A2 Attitude• A3 Adventure• A4 Activities• A5 Aspirations• A6 Assessment• A7 Awareness• A8 Agenda• A9 Acceptance• A10 Accessibility

Very Important Legislation for C.O.B.

Education Act 1998. The responsibilities of the

BOM (Sec 14-21). Information for students

and student involvement (Sec 27).

Section 29 ( provision for appeals).

Education (Welfare) Act 2000.

Provision for codes of behaviour (Sec 23).

Provision relating to expulsion and appeals (Sec 24-27).

Equal Status Act 2000 Provision relating to

discrimination and harassment.

Epson Act 2004 Provision for education

plans for students with special needs (SEN).