Our Rationale for Relational Practice and Behaviour Development

Mandeville Primary School believes that positive relationships support:

• everyone in the learning community - learners, parents/carers, and staff
• behaviour, wellbeing, attendance, inclusion, achievement and attainment, equity, equality and rights
• resilience and the ability to deal with difficulties

Relationship-based practice, or taking a relational approach, includes having high, shared expectations for behaviour that ensures safe, calm learning environments and addresses any form of harmful behaviour.

Relational practice always takes individual needs and capacity into consideration when responding to negative or harmful behaviour instead of more traditional ‘one size fits all’ fixed punitive responses. We know that children need boundaries and consistency, but we promote “flexible consistency” to make sure that we meet the needs of each individual child.

In doing this, we teach the difference between equality and equity and how both can be considered to be fair in different ways. Equality is giving everyone the same resources and opportunities, while equity is providing different levels of support based on individual needs to achieve a fair outcome. In essence, equality treats everyone the same, but equity recognizes that not everyone starts from the same place and adjusts support accordingly to ensure everyone can reach the same result.

Relational practice focuses on empathetic responsiveness and promotes the teaching of social and emotional skills with a focus on self-regulation and resilience and promoting independence as a learner. There are several key principles behind the policy:

• that values, relationships and behaviour are interdependent
• that relationships support wellbeing, and social and emotional learning and feeling of belonging to our community • that relationships enable learners to access and engage with the curriculum and within society
• that this policy is for everyone and all types of relationships: learner-learner, learner-staff, staff-staff, staff-parent/carer, parent/carer- parent/carer

Statement of Intent

At Mandeville Primary School, we believe that every child deserves unconditional positive regard (UPR). A child will thrive when they know that adults are there to support them, not only through the positive times, but also in their more difficult moments. Kindness is central to all we do.

Kindness must be modelled, shared and explicitly taught through every interaction between an adult and a child. It should form the foundation of children’s interactions with each other.

“Kindness can mean being tough and fair - exposing frailties and weaknesses but doing it with warmth and compassion. To remain kind in difficult and challenging environments takes courage and strength.” (Dave Whittaker, The Kindness Principle 2001)

The core beliefs of Mandeville Primary School are that:

• Behaviour is about everyone:

We all have a role to play in modelling, supporting and managing behaviour. Reinforcing good behaviour helps our children feel good about themselves. As a team, we understand that our actions will be scrutinised and will exemplify our core values to learners with on-going clear examples. We have a duty to ensure the safety of all children, staff and all members of our community, the impact on learning and strive to minimise disruption while helping children learn and acquire self-discipline.

• Behaviour communicates:

We believe that behaviour communicates information about need and recognise that some learners will require additional, individual support to help them with their development. We also understand that needs can change and will adapt our approach accordingly. Being aware of each child’s needs and their individual circumstances helps us to act in the fairest way

• Behaviour can change:

We strongly believe that behaviour can be changed. It can be changed when pupils feel safe, lowering their toxic stress levels. It can be changed by repairing adverse brain development though playful, empathic and reflective adult-child relationships. It can be changed by providing repeated positive relational experiences, which enables pupils to view relationships as nurturing, not threatening. Building strong relationships and using of specific praise more likely to change behaviour than blaming and punishing. We understand that behaviour does not change all at once and we will stagger expectations and offer praise when progress is made. Behaviour should be taught through high expectations, embedded values and restorative conversations.

We believe that, to facilitate teaching and learning, pro-social behaviour must be demonstrated in all aspects of school life. We are committed to following a relational approach to managing behaviour which aims to:

• Set high expectations for the behaviour of everyone in our community
• Develop strong, connected relationships with our pupils to enable early intervention
• Promote, teach and celebrate pro-social behaviour
• Promote self-esteem, self-discipline and positive relationships based on mutual respect and kindness • Ensure equality, equity and fair treatment for all
• Teach children to self-regulate their emotions and behaviours by modelling co-regulation
• Teach, praise and reward pro-social (socially acceptable) behaviour
• Challenge anti-social behaviour and teaches children about its impact and how to change behaviour
• Provide a physically and emotionally safe environment, free from disruption, violence, discrimination, bullying and any form of harassment
• Encourage positive relationships with parents/carers • Promote a culture of praise and encouragement in which all pupils can achieve.