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Provide clear and considered feedback on the effectiveness of

behaviour management strategies to inform policy review and

development As someone who works in direct contact with children, but who does not have the

same level of preparatory work and marking to do as the teacher, you are in a good

position to be able to consider the effectiveness of the school's behaviour

management strategies, and to be able to feed back to policy-makers about this.

In most cases of individual behaviour management, you will either be present at a

child's behaviour support review, or you will have access to, or be expected to read,

their behaviour support plan, so that you have full knowledge of what that child's

targets are, and how they are supposed to work towards them.

You will therefore be able to evaluate first-hand the effects of each child's behaviour

support plan, and whether or not it has been or is being successful. The measures of

success may be quite slim and subtle, and this is why your viewpoint, which is very

'up-close-and-personal', is important; not everyone will be able to see, or will have

the opportunity to observe the improved behaviour, particularly if it is becoming so by

tiny increments.

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Feedback about behaviour management.

Noticing improvements is essential if you are to praise the child for his or her better

behaviour, so it should be part of the way in which you work, even when a policy

review is not being undertaken by the school.

When you deliver feedback about the effectiveness of behaviour management

strategies, it will be more effective and will have greater impact if it is well-

structured, carefully thought-out, and easy to access. Rational and critical thinking is

essential when it comes to reviewing strategies and inputting into policies, because

delivering feedback that is not well-thought-out and which is unhelpful, is likely to

result in your opinion on the matter being undervalued.

The best way to provide this kind of feedback if you are asked for your individual

opinion is to initially construct a simple table or form headed with:

Strategy Effective or not? Reasoning

By considering your evaluation in this measured, template-based way, you make it

easier to communicate the ideas you have had through both writing and discussion

with staff, because you have thought about it in a structured way beforehand.

After you have completed the table, you should most likely reorganise the feedback

into long-hand writing, or into a verbal report to your line manager or the person who

has requested the feedback, rather than simply handing them the table of your

thinking.

If you are asked to work on the behaviour strategy alongside your class teacher and

other members of staff, they may have different ways of approaching their

evaluation. They may also have access to information around outcomes across the

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whole school, which will help them and you appreciate the successes and failures of

the current strategy.

Did you know?

The SEAL programme was used for about ten years across primary - and later,

secondary - schools, because it was identified that children who suffered from social

and emotional problems were less likely to succeed at school. It was found to be

most effective at primary level, and less effective at secondary schools. It was a

whole-school approach to social and emotional development, where projects were

begun in school assemblies and worked on by classes.