Sign In
Sign In
Register for Free
PrimarySecondary

How to Write a Behaviour Plan (and Where Schools Go Wrong)

Do your pupils’ behaviour reports actually serve a practical and constructive purpose? Jarlath O’Brien looks at where schools might be getting them wrong…

Jarlath OBrien
by Jarlath OBrien
Paddington Bear whole school resource pack
DOWNLOAD A FREE RESOURCE! Paddington Bear – Whole-school lesson plans & activity sheets
PrimaryEnglish

When chairing annual reviews as a headteacher, I would be helpfully provided with a child’s entire school file in case I needed to retrieve reports from professionals or swiftly access past paperwork.

In my first year I remember being handed Patrick’s file just before his Year 11 review. Well, I say file – it was more like a bundle of files. They were stuffed with daily and weekly behaviour reports from his five years at our school. It seemed as if Patrick had been permanently on report.

If that really was the case, then how were these behaviour plans ever deemed to be effective? Here, then, is my advice on what a positive behaviour plan ought to include.

Why does the child need a plan?

The need for a plan, and the reports that often accompany them, must be dictated by a persistent behavioural issue, not as a sanction for a child behaving poorly.

That may seem obvious, but on numerous occasions I’ve heard children being told “Right! You’re on report as of tomorrow morning!” Plans and their reports are tools for learning; not tools of retribution.

Who writes it – and who needs it?

In my experience, the people constructing the plan typically aren’t the same people putting it into operation, which can be problematic. If teachers have had no say in its construction, it can feel like a strategy is being imposed on them.

This is far harder to achieve in a secondary school, but the views of teachers must at least be sought at the planning stage.

I myself have made this mistake a number of times in the past, out of an attempt to protect colleagues from extra work – cutting them out entirely wasn’t the best way to go about it.

What problem are you trying to solve?

You’re not trying to improve the entire child, so it’s vital to be explicit and specific as to what it is you and the team are trying to address.

It’s also worth keeping at the front of your mind the fact that there are two problems to be solved – the improvement in behaviour you’re seeking, but also the problem from the child’s perspective.

Your problem will be easier to solve. You may simply want the child to stop ripping up their work and running out of class, but their problem – the unmet need(s) that are influencing the behaviour – will persist if not addressed.

Where are you trying to solve it?

Just as you’re not trying to improve the entire child, it’s also unlikely that the behavioural issues you’re seeking to address are present the entire time the child is in school.

There may be specific times of day when things are worse, such as break/lunch times, and certain subjects, such as those with a heavier demand on literacy. Here is where you’ll need to apply your best efforts first.

What does your information tell you?

In my experience, information held on children during this part of the process is usually thin or entirely absent. Without a baseline of information you’ll be at the mercy of opinion ranging from ‘Her behaviour has never been worse!’ to ‘I never had a problem when they were in my class.’

Decide what information you need to gather. It may include the number of incidents per day or week, the nature of those incidents, positive incidents and where/when things have happened.

What’s working?

By acknowledging that you’re not trying to improve the entire child, you can be clear about what is currently working well. It’s vital that this happens and is used to help challenge the culture of negativity that can creep in when a child’s behaviours are presenting a school with challenges.

Give some consideration as to what can be learned and taken away from those things that are going well.

How are the child and parents involved?

Involving both parents and the child will increase the likelihood of a behaviour plan actually leading to improvements over time. What does the child understand about the process, and how will a report help them keep on track?

How can the parents support the process? A report that goes home each day, or which can be viewed online can be really helpful, both in terms of managing the workload of teachers who may otherwise have had to call home each day, and in terms of helping the parents understand how successful school has been.

Should you offer rewards?

A common tactic with behaviour plans and their reports is to include a reward after a period of improvement, in order to offer an incentive or sweetener. I generally advise against this, since rewards can foster self-interest, a ‘What’s in for me?’ attitude.

This may appeal to the behaviourist principle of ‘Do this, get that’, as opposed to ‘do this, learn that’, but the major downside of rewards for me is that the behaviours you wish to see have no value for the child; they’re simply a route to a reward.

At best, a reward might buy you some short-term compliance. What you won’t get is any lasting change in behaviour.

How long should the review last?

If, like Patrick above, a child is placed on report for a significant length of time, it’s likely that the report in question is ineffective. This can sometimes happen when the aim of a report is to move the child from ‘Naughty’ to ‘Good’ and this is never achieved.

No-one’s perfect – if the problems you’re trying to solve (see above) are well written, then a regular review will help to celebrate successes along the way.

Everyone wants this, and it can really help to build institutional confidence, as well as the confidence of the parents and child, if you can all see that the child is doing well. It’s also possible to amend and tweak the plan as you go along.

What to avoid

  • Attempts to change the entire child
  • Plans that risk being seen as simply a route to a reward
  • All-or-nothing demands (eg ‘The child needs to be perfect for the rest of the term, or they can’t go on the school trip’)
  • Overly simplistic reports based around ticksheets or faces/emojis that signify whether the whole child was good for the entire day (‘Smily Face!’) or less than good (‘Frowny Face!’)
  • Holding children on a behaviour plan to a higher standards than their peers

Jarlath O’Brien is Director for Schools for the Eden Academy Trust of special schools in London; his latest book, Better Behaviour – A Guide for Teachers is available now, published by SAGE

You might also be interested in...