At St Dennis Primary Academy, we believe that we need to enable our pupils to be happy, healthy and confident, and have adopted a Trauma and Mental Health Informed School approach to ensure that we create a caring learning environment.

We have high expectations of children’s behaviour with a policy in place that is clear and understood by staff and children. It is applied consistently and fairly which helps to create a calm, safe and purposeful learning environment, in line with our Trauma Informed approach. Posters are displayed in all classrooms as a reminder.

St Dennis Primary Academy’s emphasis is on rewards to reinforce good behaviour. We believe that rewards have a motivational role, helping children to see that good behaviour is valued. Therefore, we ensure that every child is noticed, recognised and rewarded. We do this through Recognition Boards and Golden Time.

Recognition Boards;

Children use democracy to vote for Golden Time at the beginning of the day/week to encourage motivation.

In addition to this, we reward positive behaviour through strategies including verbal praise, non-verbal feedback (such as thumbs up, a gesture or a smile), Team Points (with the winning team being announced in our celebration assembly), Star Awards, Headteacher Awards, certificates sent home, the use of the school weekly newsletter or using social media to share success.

When children are struggling to regulate or follow our Golden Rules, we implement de-escalation strategies, working through the following steps;

During time-in we use restorative conversations (as below) to help the child process what happened and how to handle the situation better next time.

Each year every classroom develops and displays their own Class Charter (where rules have been discussed and agreed as a class) and a chart that children work their way up for good behaviour and effort.

We also use targeted interventions to improve pupil behaviour and support is provided through the Boxall Profile and Individual Support Plans to help children meet the behaviour standards. Reasonable adjustments are made for pupils with a disability as required.

Disruption is not tolerated, and proportionate action is taken to restore acceptable standards of behaviour.

All members of the school community create a positive, safe environment in which bullying, physical threats or abuse and intimidation are not tolerated. Also, where everyone is treated respectfully and any incidents of bullying, discrimination, aggression, and derogatory language (including name calling) are dealt with quickly and effectively.

Behaviour for Learning is developed through learning about a Growth Mindset. We support children to have this by:

• Teaching and explaining about fixed and growth mindsets
• Creating a safe space for risk taking and challenging ourselves
• Praising perseverance and use of strategies
• Taking advantage of mistakes
• Having high expectations
• Explaining that some things take time and effort
• Remembering that our brains are always developing
• Having visual cues within the classroom - 'yet' posters
• Celebrating a growth mindset verbally and through the chosen pupil of the week

We have also developed our ‘5 Bs’ to promote resilience and independent learning.

Independent learning is a method or learning process where learners have ownership and control of their learning – they learn by their own actions and direct, regulate, and assess their own learning.

The independent learner is able to set goals, make choices, and decisions about how to meet their learning needs, take responsibility for constructing and carrying out their own learning, monitor their progress toward achieving learning goals and self-assess the learning outcomes.

Children work through our 5 Bs in order, before they ask an adult for support.

• Brain - using their brain to think of the answer
• Board - can they see the answer on the board?
• Book - can they find the answer in their book?
• Buddy - can the children on their table or next to them help them?
• Boss - if none of the other B’s can help them, they can ask the teacher for support.

High expectations for behaviour remain throughout the whole school day. When children come into school in the morning, we use ‘Meet and Greet’ to support a welcoming environment and notice when children may need an alternative start to ensure they are ready to learn.

Silent signals are used for transitions and lining up and children are encouraged to show ‘smart walking’.

Lining-up tokens are awarded for ‘smart walking’ and ‘smart lines’ and the winning class is announced in our celebration assembly each week.  The winning class is shared on the school newsletter and have a special box of playground toys to play with as a reward.