Behaviour & Learning Management

Home Office report on discipline and crime - A recently published Home Office study shows that pupils attending schools which were soft on violence and truanting were more likely to break the law. As a result, the authors are urging ministers to consider "toughening up" discipline policies.

Worryingly, the survey of young people's behaviour found nearly three quarters were caught up in either crime, drug taking or anti-social behaviour over four years. Over a single year, the figure was 44%.  A hard core of prolific offenders carried out many more crimes than their peers, it found. The group, making up around 4% of the total, carried out a third of all the crimes. They admitted to offences such as assault, theft, drug taking and criminal damage. Young people in single parent families and those with siblings or friends were more likely to offend themselves.

Researchers asked 5,000 young people aged between 10 and 25 about their behaviour over the previous year. The survey was repeated in England and Wales every year between 2003 and 2006 to build up a detailed picture of their behaviour.

Although young men were more likely to cause trouble, up to half of teenage girls admitted wrongdoing. Children as young as 11 admitted taking hard drugs. Cocaine, ecstasy and LSD were most likely to be used by 19-year-olds but cannabis use peaked at age 16.

The report said: "Further consideration could be given to enhancing schools' disciplinary policies, given this report's finding that weak school discipline is related to an increased likelihood of offending and drug use."

September programme - the Assertive Discipline Master class and Leader training programme has now been successfully completed at the East Kilbride Holiday Inn. It was attended not only by teachers from Scotland but also England and Norway.

 Robert, Ashley, James, Sharon, Frode, Geoff (trainer), John, Des, Helen

From now on we hope to be able to set-up and maintain an e-network with each participant to provide you with ongoing support and advice about using our programmes after each training event. We are already underway with our South Lanarkshire colleagues with this - making use of the "GLOW" system to form support groups for those who have undertaken our Situational Leadership II programme. This time we trained 20 teachers in the method at Hamilton, and we will now be able to provide e-support to those graduates as they use the SLII framework in their various leadership roles.

The Leader training group at the Holiday Inn 

Norwegian Study Visit - Behaviour & Learning Management were pleased to host a team of visiting Norwegian educators recently who were here to look at how we do Assertive Discipline in our schools. The special needs team of seven from Bergen, led by our old friend Karsten Krossnes, visited two primary schools in South London where the programme has been in use for some time.

On Day One they visited Christ Church C of E Primary school, Wandsworth, where in the past we have filmed teachers in action for our own training videos. The head teacher, Colette Morris, is also one of our trainers - and so knows the stuff inside out!

Norwegian visitors with Colette at Christ Church

On Day two the team visited the Herbert Morrison primary school, Lambeth, where the deputy head Lucy Aletti explained how Assertive Discipline had been developed in that school. Our thanks to the children and staff of both schools for allowing us in, and for providing such a warm welcome. 

Visiting Herbert Morrison primary with Lucy

A Good Childhood?  - It seems that despite the fact that the children of today enjoy better educational and health facilities, and have more possessions, their psychological lives are more difficult now than they were in the past. This is the conclusion from the largest survey into childhood ever to be conducted in the UK by the Children’s Society.

The report “A Good Childhood” was published on 2nd February 2009. It states that children still need to be loved! And it sets out recommendations to parents, teachers and the government on how they can better care for children.  It observes that many of the emotional problems experienced by today’s children occur because of inadequate parenting.  By the age of three, children of single parents are three times more likely to have behaviour problems. The study also suggests children of single-parent families are twice as likely to experience poor conceptual development compared with those with married parents. 

The report confirms the value of traditional families, in the face of what the report describes as "a massive change in our way of life" - the fact that 70% of mothers now work, compared with around a quarter 25 years ago - and that one in three 16-year-olds now live apart from their father.  The report says that a key factor in the increased difficulties faced by children is the "excessively individualistic ethos" of contemporary British society. It calls for “a radical shift away from the excessively individualistic ethos which now prevails, to an ethos where the constant question is, "What would we do if our aim was a world based on love?” 

Business world training for education leaders in Situational Leadership II - 2009 brings with it continued demand from school leaders for us to provide this training. Last year we began work with local authorities in Scotland and Wales to train all senior school managers - and the response from that means this year there will be more. So what does this approach uniquely offer? Well, we read a lot from the DCSF about developing distributed leadership in our schools. The NCSL writes even more about organisational structures and management systems. Lots of words – but not always leading to a great deal of action. Leadership is primarily about how we positively influence those we lead. Getting efficient structures and systems in place is important only insofar as you then have the important conversations. It is about how you communicate with others. Leadership in today’s busy schools needs to be shared, but people need to be taught how to lead.

The acknowledged best fit model for teaching others how to lead is Situational Leadership® II.  Why so? Because -

• it provides an easily understood framework for leadership; you don’t need a Masters degree in business gobbledygook to explain it!
• it is immediately doable; managers at any level of the organisation can apply it to their own practice without any additional systems in place
• it is tried and tested; the Blanchard organization, which accredits our work, is replete with researched examples of effective practice
• it is well delivered; we have oodles of compliments about the high quality of our training – check them out for yourself. 

As the only UK accredited trainers for schools in Situational Leadership® II - the acknowledged "best in its class" leadership programme by the business world - we are pleased to offer this specialist training to school senior and middle managers. For this two day training we charge just 1/3 of what you would pay in the commercial world – yet the quality of our training is top class. In the business world this 2 day training would cost over £1000 per person for the 2 days. We run it for £395. Why? Because we used to be teachers, we therefore know the economic realities for school leaders, and we do what we do because we believe in education and not profit!  Whenever we deliver this programme for school leaders we always receive unequivocal praise for the standard of our training and for its practical and tactful approach to teacher management! Situational Leadership® II gives school leaders a commonsense framework for meeting the professional development needs of their direct reports and the skills to manage the potential minefield of Performance Management in a positive and supportive manner. 

What do you get for this?  Situational Leadership® II training gives you a set of tools for opening up communication and helping others develop self-reliance. There are three key skills of Situational Leadership -

• "Diagnosis" - As leader you need to know the development level of your 'direct report' for each of the tasks that person has to perform.  We show you how to identify the level of competence and the level of commitment each person has for that particular task.
• "Flexibility" - The leader then considers the sort of leadership style that will match the follower's strengths and needs. We ask how much direction that person needs to improve on the task, how much support that person needs to gain their commitment. Now we can more effectively match leadership style to the development level of the follower.
• "Partnering for Performance" - At this stage we make arrangements for how we partner up with our direct reports to work on those tasks where the follower has not yet achieved independent mastery. In schools this is often initially a voluntary arrangement - a service we offer colleagues within their own CPD remit. Some time later in the development cycle, however, it may be a requirement that each colleague achieves the goals set within our School Improvement Plan.

On this 2 day training programme you will learn

• about your own leadership style, compare it with that of your manager, colleagues, and those you manage
• how to develop competent and committed teams by diagnosing development level, then managing with the appropriate leadership styles
• how to reach agreements with others about how much direction and support they need from you to reach their goals
• how to analyse case-studies, use hands-on activities, and practical examples from your own work place in order to apply Situational Leadership® II to real-life situations in your own school.

Who should attend?

• Any individuals in leadership roles who want to increase their effectiveness
• Head Teachers and their Senior Management Team
• Middle Managers, HoD, HoY, etc and their curriculum or pastoral teams.

Please note that we are the only UK organisation accredited to provide this training to schools.  Contact us now for a place on our next Situational Leadership® II programme. Phone 0870 241 8262 or email info@behaviour-learning.com

10% discount for 2 or more from the same school. We also provide this training within-house with a team from your own school or learning community at your own venue or at our office here in Eagle Tower, Cheltenham.  It usually requires two days to complete the full programme but we can also tailor the content to meet your own requirements.

Situational Teaching & Learning - We are currently engaged in a project to translate the leadership concepts of Situational Leadership II into the classroom to provide a practical tool for improving pupil achievement. We have been piloting this approach with just a handful of schools in England and Scotland so far.  The objective is to equip our pupils with the means to assess their own learning development levels on topics they are currently being taught. They are first shown how to identify their present level of competence on a task and their commitment to learning or applying those skills. This then allows each pupil to identify the style of teaching that they now need to progress.  As a result they can take more ownership of their own learning, and enter into more positive dialogue with their teachers about their learning needs.

If your school is interested in taking part in this project please give us a call or drop us an email.