School Standards Unit

Making a Difference on Behaviour and Attendance

An Action Plan for 2011-2013

Improving behaviour and attendance to help raise standards in schools

Introduction

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There have been a number of major developments in education in Wales since the launch of the Behaving and Attending Action Plan in March 2009. These developments, and completion of many of the actions in the old plan, means that a new focused plan is needed to deliver on Ministerial priorities. This document sets out our future plan for improving behaviour and attendance in Wales.

Background

The National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) report, published in May 2008, contained 19 core recommendations and a further 73 supporting recommendations. The Welsh Government’s response to this review took the form of the Behaving and Attending Action Plan. The action plan aimed to impact positively on the lives of children and young people by putting in place new methods and processes to improve and develop a cohesive approach to promoting positive behaviour and attendance and help develop consistent practices across Wales.

The need for change

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Teaching Makes a Difference

In his speech, Teaching Makes a Difference, in February 2011, the Minister for Education and Skills, Leighton Andrews, set out his 20 priorities for schools in Wales. The Minister was responding to evidence on the under performance of schools in Wales from a number of sources, including the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results for 2009.

The priorities aim to improve many aspects relating to teaching, learning, accountability and collaboration. In this context, the Minister set out the need to revitalise and refocus our approach to behaviour and attendance:

‘The next phase will concentrate on outcomes and improving behaviour to raise standards. All newly qualified teachers will undertake development modules in behaviour management as part of their induction process’.

‘Attendance data will be rigorously interrogated as a key element of the new annual public profile for schools, going forward I expect zero tolerance of truancy.’

The need for change

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There has been good progress on behaviour in recent years when looking at comparisons with other UK countries on the rate of exclusions from schools. However, the story on attendance figures is not good. Welsh attendance rates are the lowest in the UK. As the Minister said 'If attendance in Wales was at the level of England, our young people would effectively, on average, have an additional eight weeks of learning across their school career. Two-thirds of a term.' Attendance figures in Wales have improved in recent years, but they remain stubbornly low and more drastic action is needed to kick start an improvement.

It is now time to move on from the NBAR report and develop a new action plan which reflects not just the Minister’s priorities, but also ensures that behaviour and attendance are embedded in the developing initiatives being taken forward by the Welsh Government.

The New Action Plan for Behaviour and Attendance 2011-2013

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It is important to recognise that behaviour and attendance can only be improved through looking across the whole of education and children’s services. Key to the sustainability of the new plan will be to ensure it is embedded not only in the work of the SSU but also strongly linked to other major initiatives. These include the Families First programme, Professional Learning Communities, the School Effectiveness Framework, the Continuing Professional Development Framework and initiatives to reduce the number of young people not in education, employment and training (NEET), particularly the Youth Engagement and Employment Plan .

A more focused approach to behaviour and attendance

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• Training and development were recognised in the National Behaviour and Attendance Review as a major area for improvement, as evidence suggested that many teachers and other school staff felt ill-equipped to deal with poor behaviour in the classroom and many had received very little training on this aspect as part of their initial teacher training.

Training & Development

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• To ensure consistency of approach the performance of schools and local authorities on attendance, behaviour and education otherwise than at school (EOTAS) will be assessed in greater depth and will be allied to the new approaches for monitoring standards, improvement and progress being developed by the Welsh Government’s School Standards Unit.

Standards & Accountability

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• Development work will attempt to improve the coordination of the various agencies‘ support for pupils who have the greatest needs and thereby introduce more efficient and cost-effective practices throughout Wales

Holistic approach to

individual support and ALN

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The New Action Plan for Behaviour and Attendance – 2011-2013

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Training & Development

• Develop training modules on behaviour management and attendance to be delivered through Initial Teacher Training, Induction and Continuing Professional Development.

• Fund training in well evaluated behaviour management programmes.

• Promote the use of restorative practices in schools, working with the Police through the All-Wales School Liaison Core Programme.

• Develop training and development and career framework for the Education Welfare Service (EWS).

Standards & Accountability

• Develop an Attendance Analysis Framework for use by local authorities.

• Ensure attendance is included in the new banding system for schools and schools’ published information.

• Introduce a national collection of data on exclusions at pupil and school level to be used for benchmarking.

• Hold an annual ‘open and honest’ discussion with local authorities to discuss performance on exclusions / attendance and pupils Educated Otherwise Than at School (EOTAS).

Holistic approach to individual

support and ALN

• Use the information gathered through the behaviour and attendance pilots to inform future approaches to individual support being developed through the ALN pilots and future reform of the statementing process.

• Publish and implement an action plan on improving Education Otherwise Than at School.

Training and development – The actions in more detail

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1.Develop training modules on behaviour management and attendance to be delivered through Initial Teacher Training (ITT), Induction and Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Develop modules during 2011-12 for implementation from the start of the 2012-13 academic year. These will form part of the broader approach to qualifications, training and standards being developed. The modules will draw on the significant number of materials which have already been developed by the Welsh Government on these aspects including the Behaviour Management Handbook for secondary schools and guidance and best practice documents on inclusion and pupil support and nurture groups.

2.Fund training in well evaluated behaviour management programmes

In order to maintain momentum whilst the training modules are being developed, funding will be provided to local authorities from 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 for the specific purposes of training teachers and support staff in behaviour management techniques. It will be a requirement that local authorities use the funding for training programmes which have been well-evaluated – for example, the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Programme; Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS); Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme (BPP); and Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL).

Additionally we want to maintain the momentum on intervention at an early age, as evidence suggests that this is likely to be more effective. To this end funding will be made available to expand the delivery of ‘train the trainer’ sessions in the Incredible Years Programme provided by Bangor University. This will focus on the Teacher Classroom Management and therapeutic elements and will sit alongside other funding which the Welsh Government is providing for the Incredible Years parenting programme.

Training and development – The actions in more detail (continued).

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3. Promote the use of restorative practices in schools, working with the Police through the All-Wales School Liaison Core Programme

Evidence suggests that use of restorative practices throughout a school can help schools to maintain positive relationships amongst their pupils. The Welsh Government wants to promote the use of restorative practices in schools by including it as a specific area within the modules being developed for training and development on behaviour management. All the Schools Police Liaison Officers involved in the All-Wales School Liaison Core Programme have been trained in the use of restorative practices. We will therefore continue to work with the Police to explore how we might best share their expertise and knowledge with school staff.

4. Develop training and development and career framework for the Education Welfare ServiceLocal authority education welfare services (EWS) have a key role in promoting attendance and working with poor-attending or absent pupils and their parents / carers. This is reflected in our issuing the all Wales Attendance Framework specifically for promoting consistency of practice in the EWS across Wales. The NBAR report and review of the EWS commissioned by the Welsh Government (2006) highlighted the need for the development of the EWS, in terms of ensuring that it was suitably integrated with other education services and had suitable opportunities for development and training. For that reason we will continue with the action from the old plan to commission the formulation of a training, development and career framework for the EWS.

Standards and accountability – The actions in more detail

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1. Develop an Attendance Analysis Framework for use by local authorities

Effective tackling of poor attendance has to be based on strategic use of the wide range of data available on individual pupils’ and schools’ absence levels. The development of an Attendance Analysis Framework aims to set out a standardised and robust approach to analysing and using attendance data. It will focus on identifying systematic problems in schools, and how these might be addressed, as opposed to reacting to the day to day follow-up of poor attendees which appears to be largely in place already.

A Framework will be developed within the context of the Welsh Government’s Schools Standards Unit’s aim to draw together data sources into a coherent set to be used by consortia and local authorities. Whilst the EWS have a key role in helping to develop the Framework and its subsequent implementation we will work directly with the EWS to ensure that they are making full use of the wide range of attendance data at their disposal.

Working alongside the Welsh Government’s School Standards Unit and Statistical Directorate we will develop an Attendance Analysis Framework with particular focus on persistent absentees as there is wide variation across Wales on this aspect. The Framework will be rolled out to all local authorities and the EWS through a series of seminars delivered by the Welsh Government.

2. Ensure attendance is included in the new banding system for schools and schools’ annual public profile

It is intended to include attendance as one of the measures which are used to assign a band under the new system proposed to be implemented from 2011-2012. It will also be one of the elements of schools’ published information.

Standards and accountability – The actions in more detail (continued).

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3. Introduce a national collection of data on exclusions at pupil and school level to be used for benchmarking

Currently the Welsh Government collects data on exclusions only at a local authority level. We will introduce a new central collection of exclusions data at pupil level to allow more scope for national comparison of schools’ performance. The intention is for exclusion data to be included within the PLASC collection within the next two years. As well as merely adapting data collection systems, the accuracy of the data will need to be considered and in particular it will need to be assessed whether schools are reporting all their exclusions, including those where they have incorrectly not followed formal exclusion procedures.

4. Hold annual ‘open and honest’ discussions with local authorities to discuss performance on exclusions / attendance and pupils Educated Otherwise Than at School (EOTAS)

We will hold annual discussions with key officials in local authorities who have responsibility for improving attendance and behaviour in schools, including heads of inclusion, managers of behaviour support services and educational welfare services. These discussions will be allied to the broader annual discussions undertaken as part of the banding system being developed by the School Standards Unit but will provide the opportunity to explore in more detail the specific data and approaches on behaviour and attendance. This work would also enable good practice to be identified which could be shared across Wales.

A holistic approach to individual support and ALN – The actions in more detail

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1. Use the information gathered through the behaviour and attendance pilots to inform future approaches to individual support being developed through the ALN pilots and future reform of the statementing process

We shall continue a smaller number of behaviour and attendance pilots which have been running in 2009/10 and 2010/11 for a final academic year to ensure that sufficient time is given to assess whether the approaches have been effective and are transferable across Wales. Based on preliminary analysis, 5 of the original 9 pilots which are proving to be most effective will be continued.

The evidence from the behaviour and attendance pilots will feed into the future reform of the additional learning needs (ALN) framework. Strong links are currently in place between these and the additional learning needs pilots to ensure that the learning from each set of pilots is shared.

A holistic approach to individual support and ALN– The actions in more detail (continued).

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2. Publish and implement an action plan on improving Education Otherwise Than at SchoolThe NBAR highlighted the variation in the types and quality of EOTAS, which is largely for excluded pupils or those in danger of exclusion. Whilst the number of pupils who are receiving local authority funded EOTAS is relatively small (around 2,400) these learners will form a significant proportion of those who are not in education, employment or training (NEET).

EOTAS provision is also expensive and a focus on improving the standards of EOTAS could therefore release funding for other purposes and ensure that those pupils who are receiving EOTAS are receiving the best quality education and are more likely to be reintegrated into mainstream education or training.

A review was undertaken as part of the previous action plan, involving local authority behaviour support managers, teachers in charge of pupil referral units and Estyn. This was well-received and will shortly be released on the Welsh Government web pages. This will be in the form of a ‘living’ action plan which can be readily adapted to reflect wider developments and priorities.

A key element within the EOTAS plan is the commissioning of a research project to explore the barriers which local authorities face in providing full-time education for excluded pupils. This research project will also identify the varying approaches and effectiveness of authorities’ practices for reintegrating pupils into mainstream education and training and produce case studies of good practice.