Should the number of behaviour referrals always be going down?
[NOTE: By ‘behaviour referral’ I’m just using a catch-all term here — I could mean C2s or demerits or detentions given or whatever the parlance is in your own school — hope that’s clear]
At this time of year (even in this most unusual of years), lots of schools and subject departments are thinking about their action plan for the year ahead. One of the most common targets that features in whole school and departmental action plans is to ‘reduce the number of behaviour referrals’ or some variant thereof. The logic being, of course, that if the number of behaviour referrals goes down then that means behaviour must be getting better. This does of course make some degree of sense — we all want to work in schools where there are few or zero behaviour incidents because it makes the job of teaching our subjects so much easier. It also sounds pretty illogical to suggest the converse — that an increasing number of incidents means behaviour is getting better.
However, this is one of those things in schools, of which there are many, that seems logical but in my view is not very helpful. This thinking leads to very perverse incentives to ensure that the number of referrals goes down without actually ensuring that the behaviour of the students improves. For example, I have certainly seen in my career instances of behaviour incidents logged ‘on the system’ being mysteriously disappeared into the ether. These kind of targets, when placed on individual departments or even teachers, can lead to things simply not being reported at all when they should be. This is of course fostered by the OFSTED/accountability culture where declining behaviour referrals can be seen as a clear measure of improving behaviour (kind of like if there’s loads of red pen written by my students on the DIRT task in their exercise book then it means they’ve definitely improved and reflected really well [wink, wink]). It’s also fostered by cumbersome bureaucratic systems where the onus is put on teachers to, for example, fill out extensive forms, followed by having to man their own detentions in their own time (and where you have to find a slot for the child to do the detention but it’s difficult because they’re, ah, shall we say, pretty booked up for the next few weeks!), and then have a restorative conversation with said child (not a bad idea on its’ own terms but this can’t be the sole basis of the system in my view). These systems seem designed to deter teachers from using the system in the first place! Centralised systems are a dramatic improvement in my view and also foster a team culture in managing behaviour as a school. What we want is for the behaviour of students in an individual lesson to be everyone’s shared problem, not just that teacher’s (especially if they are young, or new to a school). As teachers we are all on the same team and whatever the nature of your system, getting that right is crucial.
The issue is that, of course, the number of behaviour referrals is not necessarily a very good indicator of the quality of behaviour in a school, much in the same way that crime figures in the UK are not always excellent indicators of the amount of crime in the UK (indeed, there are multiple ways of recording crime which further muddies the water). Indeed, when behaviour referrals do go down, senior leaders can then have further misplaced confidence when they conduct their own lesson visits and find that all is hunky-dory when they enter a classroom (forgetting of course that most classes in most schools go pretty quiet when another adult, especially a senior leader, enters a room). If you have lots of new staff, they need confidence, particularly in the early days, to use the systems as intended while they are setting their stall out.
It was disconcerting to me, back when I was an (admittedly very average) senior leader, that we’d have discussions about teachers with the highest number of behaviour referrals. The insinuation in these discussions was that there was a problem with the teacher, rather than thinking that perhaps the issues were more fundamental in terms of student discipline. Perhaps teachers using the behaviour system the most are doing the utmost to uphold the system rather than weaken it? (Disclaimer — I’m not usually one of those teachers — I don’t say that out of pride, I’m sure there are times when I let things go that I shouldn’t). In some schools, lesson visits or learning walks are clearly always about monitoring the teacher, rather than monitoring the students — and often the students know it and this can have predictable consequences for student behaviour in the long run.
What we need is really clear systems, and a willingness to be honest. Senior leaders and behaviour leaders need to promote a culture where accuracy of reporting and consistency in this amongst all staff is valued over and above what the graph of behaviour referrals actually looks like. Senior leaders need to go into lessons and support teachers where there is an issue and coach and clarify what should be being picked up (how Michaela School do this, as discussed in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers is one example — I think I would admit I would find that really uncomfortable to begin with as I often don’t really like being told what to do but I get where there coming from and that is being done with them thinking the best of their teachers rather than the worst). It needs to be clear that experienced teachers (and, indeed, teaching senior leaders) following the system is one of the best ways we can boost the confidence of new members of staff in doing same as they establish themselves in the school.
Only when the accuracy of reporting is in place can we then start to seriously suggest that ‘reducing’ the number of behaviour referrals is a viable target. Even then I think we need to be careful. Even in the most militant of behaviour systems, things happen that mean there will be discipline issues to resolve. Children will come in with issues from outside of school, or from the hidden corners of the playground, or wherever, or they may have fallen out with their friend, and this may well lead to situations, small or big, in school. I don’t really think any school, even with the most amazing preventative systems, can truly eliminate this — these are children we’re talking about. They are unpredictable and human, and that means we can’t control everything that they do — there are times when, inevitably, we will need to be reactive rather than pro-active.
I once visited a school in advance of a potential application for a job. When the Deputy Head told me that they didn’t really need a behaviour system in their mixed West Yorkshire comprehensive school, I pretty much decided straight away that I was not applying for that job — and this was at a time when I’d resigned from my current position and had nothing to go to! By contrast my NQT school was an all-girls grammar school in central Birmingham — an amazing place to learn to teach with students who generally behaved immaculately. We still had a behaviour system and we still reinforced our expectations with students regularly in order to prevent issues rather than having to react to them.
Behaviour systems are really important things in schools. They are about ensuring the best and safest climate for learning for everyone. They can take many different forms but whatever the system, we need to make sure we are prioritising that it is implemented consistently and fairly. Too often we forget to get that stage right before we move onto to the ‘reducing incidents’ stage. Perhaps the issue really is that the number of behaviour incidents logged on a system is not actually a very good proxy for measuring the quality of behaviour in a school in the first place.
