The Behaviour Smart Podcast
Welcome to the Behaviour Smart Podcast – the show that explores the intersection of education, care, and behaviour management, with a side of thought-provoking conversations on a range of other topics.
Each episode dives into practical strategies and innovative solutions for improving behaviour in educational and care settings, while also offering insightful discussions on broader themes like personal growth, culture, and current events. Whether you're a teacher, care professional, parent, or simply curious about human behaviour, our podcast offers something for everyone.
Tune in for expert interviews, real-life stories, and fresh perspectives – all aimed at creating positive change in the way we understand and support behaviour.
The Behaviour Smart Podcast
Relationships First: How Positive School Culture Transforms Student Behaviour
Ever wondered what makes an exceptional school truly exceptional? Mark Allen, Headteacher of Trinity St Edwards in Barnsley, offers a masterclass in educational leadership that challenges conventional wisdom about behavior management and school culture.
Dean Cotton takes us inside an Outstanding-rated school where the approach to student behavior begins not with consequences, but with curiosity. "If I saw a child that was struggling with behavior, I was like why? Where's that coming from?" Mark explains, revealing how this simple shift in perspective transforms both classroom dynamics and student outcomes.
The conversation delves into the art of building a cohesive school culture where every staff member shares the same values. Mark's recruitment philosophy—finding people who will "run through a wall for those kids"—has created a remarkable environment where relationships come first. His practical systems for managing behavior balance clear boundaries with compassion, using data to identify patterns and support needs rather than simply punishing infractions.
Most compelling is Mark's metaphor for relationship-building: students carry jars that gain a pound with each positive interaction but lose seven pounds with each negative one. "If you've got money in that jar, you've got a positive relationship," he explains, illuminating why consistent kindness matters more than occasional discipline.
From reflection rooms that continue learning while addressing behavior to character cards that reward small acts of kindness, Mark shares practical strategies any school can implement. His journey from PE teacher to award-winning headteacher proves that putting students' needs at the center of every decision creates not just better behavior, but a better education.
Discover why Dean was so impressed he enrolled his own daughter at Mark's school, and why his approach to leadership might just change how you think about education itself.
Welcome to the Behaviour Smart podcast brought to you by Behaviour Smart, the incident recording system that improves behaviour. Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy the Behaviour Smart podcast.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody and welcome to another Behaviour Smart podcast. My name is Dean Cotton, I'm the CEO of Behaviour Smart Limited and today we are here with Mark Allen and I'm going to introduce Mark. I went up to Mark's school, trinity St Edwards in Barnsley. I went up there a couple of weeks ago and I was blown away by the school and the whole ethos of the organisation. So I asked Mark if he would like to come on the Behaviour Smart podcast and he agreed, which is great. And Mark, welcome to the Behaviour Smart Podcast. How are you today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, dean, I'm good. Thank you, pleasure to be here and to speak to you and, obviously, people listening at the same time. It's good to have a chat, good to catch up again.
Speaker 2:It certainly is. We go back quite a long way, mark and I, and I'm sure we'll discuss that later on in the podcast. But yeah, so I went up to Mark's school and had a look around his school and the ethos of your school, mark. It felt really special. And do you just want to put it into context? I mean, if you go back to where you started from, you know how did you get into teaching and then tell us a little bit about what you do today and sort of the ethos of your school, if that's okay yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Um. So my background is PE teacher. Um, I love playing sport as a kid growing up. Um, my PE teachers are my role models, so that's what I just wanted to do. Um, so went into kind of PE teaching and that was all I ever wanted to do, so kind of got my dream job.
Speaker 3:Um moved across to Sheffield when I met my wife, um, and then kind of got started to do a little bit of pastoral work and enjoyed being a form tutor and getting involved with with things like that. Um, that was at Silverdale School in Sheffield, which is where we first met and got a role to first of all be kind of head of year seven um and look at transition from primary school to secondary school. And then I was fortunate enough then to progress and become assistant head teacher and be in charge of all pastoral across the school and then from there became and moved to be vice principal for inclusion at the Dern Academy, which is a school in Barnsley, spent seven years there. When we went there. When I went there, it was in a category for Ofsted and managed to take the school with the other senior leaders and staff out of that category. I did a lot of really great work there with the cohort and the children and then I got a real passion for kind of thinking about being a head teacher and kind of leading you know my own school and using some of my experiences and then was very lucky enough to get the post them in now.
Speaker 3:So this was advertised in Barnsley Again, it's a place that's close to my heart, as I said, because I've been working for numerous years and this was a free school. So the school was open because of a need for places in Barnsley and our trust was successful in the bids that's Trinity, multi-academy Trust that have schools um over in in West Yorkshire, predominantly um. So it was the first venture into South Yorkshire but a lot of the trust um work aligns with mine, especially looking at how we support children from most disadvantaged communities and giving them the chance in life that they may not have. And that's one of our kind of prime directives as a trust to to do that and that aligned um and then was fortunate enough to get the job and grow it from scratch. So we we've basically grown one year at a time.
Speaker 3:Um. We had a temporary site for three years um because there was a fair few issues with with builds, and people that go through free schools will probably know that. And then we've moved into our brand new building in September, which I took you around. Prior to that, in May, we had our first Ofsted visit and we're giving outstanding in all areas, which we're delighted with, and that was the first mainstream school ever in Barnsley to get that, so we're delighted with that. To get that um, so we're delighted with that um, and you know, here I am now, kind of you know, in this very fortunate position to lead this, this wonderful school with wonderful staff and children, and I suppose you asked about the culture of the school.
Speaker 3:That's, that's what it is. We've, we've kind of always predicated that the ethos of the school is for the children, um, and again aligns to kind of what our mat's about that we do things for the betterment of children and being able to grow the school with staff and employ new staff every year and coming on that journey with us and, at the same time, using my experience of leading inclusion to look at how we overcome barriers, how we support children that need it, how we use rewards and celebrations and excellence to instill confidence and self-esteem in the children and make it a place that people want to come to and, you know, for the children to enjoy it, to have a smile on the face, and the same for the staff.
Speaker 2:I mean it's brilliant. I mean let's just go back a little bit because I just want to explain something that I was running a behaviour support course and and on those behavior support courses that I run I get a lot of SEMH staff, people working in special schools, and then one day I turned up to run this course and I've got a mainstream secondary school teacher on this course. And I must admit, at first when I saw your name mainstream secondary school teacher, I you know it's interesting, we don't usually get Mainstream School secondary teachers on those courses and Mark turned up and he did the course. It was a five-day course that I was running and the empathy that you had towards the students that you're working with really struck a chord. And I'm going to say this you know, it struck a chord that much that I actually sent my daughter to Mark's school because I wanted her to be exposed to that ethos and that culture.
Speaker 2:Because in my experience at that time of mainstream secondary schools, that's not what they were like. And I know there are lots of really really good secondary schools and we work with lots of schools, but in my experience, certainly when I was at school well, that was quite a while ago the school was about you know, do as I say and sort of lots of carrot and stick and detentions and punishments and a whole range of different things. But Mark's ethos was completely different and, like I say, I ended up sending my daughter to his school. Do you ever come across sort of people challenging your views around ethos and culture? Because actually, you know I don't know whether I'm going too far to say this but you love the kids that you work with and you treat them with respect and dignity at all times, and sometimes we don't see that in some schools, but you know we're doing yours. So I just wondered if you ever came across people that say, no, that's not the right way to do it, you need to do this and you need to use money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know in any walk of life, you come across, you know people that have different views and opposing views. And I think that's fine.
Speaker 3:You know there are lots of successful schools that have done things in different ways. To kind of the way we do it. I think there's also a happy medium. You know, what I always focused on was thinking about if I saw a child that was struggling, or it was a behaviour need that was displayed in challenging behaviour, I was like why? Where's that coming from what you know? What's driving that behavior? How do we understand it?
Speaker 3:Um, you know there are still lines that you have to draw in the sand. There are still consequences and learning to take place to understand that that response, that behavior is not acceptable. So therefore, what do we do differently next time? And you know, a lot of the work that we first did together was then recognizing for children what those emotions and feelings are, because they understand those better than being able to kind of describe something or look at a consequence. So I was always really fascinated at unpicking what drives that behavior and why. How does it make you feel? And therefore, when you feel like that, how do you act? And therefore, right, well, you're not allowed to do it that way because that's not how we behave in society. We have to think about the next time you feel like that, let's try this instead. And that takes a while. You know, um and and you know even now as a head teacher at school, you know there's still rules and regulations and consequences that still have the structure in place because you need that.
Speaker 3:But then behind the scenes of all that is lots of support networks, lots of external agencies, graduated responses to need and trying to actually find out which one of them it is.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the things we've looked at here in the last couple of years is, early on, doing a really kind of drilled down needs analysis of what is it that's being displayed and, if it is an SEM need, which aspect of it is predominantly showing the most.
Speaker 3:So therefore, if it is an SEMH need that we're seeing, then therefore we go down that route of support and intervention rather than it being a kind of blind alley, and we think we know what it is. And sometimes what I've found is that the SEMH need being shown. The primary need is generally the cognition, because of poor literacy skills or poor reading age or a further special educational need that needs some real support. So I think sometimes People will have opposing views to mine and will say that you can't do those things or you need to do it this way. And I think I've been really fortunate, in the trust that I work in, that we've had, you know, some clear systems and directions in place but also the chance for each head teacher in each school to develop that culture of how to support the children the best, and that's been something that was really kind of predominant in why I chose, you know, to go for this role and work for the trust that I work for.
Speaker 2:I think when I came to look around, one thing that struck me was that all the staff felt like all the staff had the same ethos, same values, same beliefs, and I mean that must be a bit of a challenge, because how many staff do you have working?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're four years in now. So at the moment we've probably got about 64, 65, 70, something like that. And yeah, you know we've worked really hard on that. And I think when it comes to recruitment, you know that's where I suppose I've been fortunate in that I've been able to appoint all of my staff. I've been on every interview panel, you know.
Speaker 3:I've asked those questions and one of the things that I say when I do an advert is I ask people to come and see the school and speak to me and meet me, and so I can explain what my ethos is and why. And it is about the children and doing the best for the children. So I think when you're really upfront and clear about that, some people straight away say that you know, okay, that's not for me and that's fine. You know it's not for everybody, but I'm really clear around the type of colleague that I want here and how I want them to work and, at the same time, that I'll invest in them. You know, that's, that's the, that's the give and take of it, or?
Speaker 2:we want to make them the best professionals they can be as well, and it obviously works. I mean, I was looking through your website before we we met and you've won quite a few awards. The school's a multi awardaward winning uh academy, isn't it, and I'm just going to put some of the awards up on the screen here, and I wondered if you could just talk us through some of these awards.
Speaker 3:yeah sure, and you know that that's been the beauty of being able to grow from the start. So you know, one of the things that we we got first of all was in the top left corner, the worldclass school. That was something that we did as a trust and we were one of only a small amount of trusts in the country where every school was given the world-class schools award. And that's around again, how we support children, how we support parents, how our curriculum helps them to achieve, how we have pastoral systems in place, and we submitted a kind of case around that, um, and we actually got shortlisted to be world-class school of the year that year in a temporary building with not many facilities, um, and you know, we didn't end up winning, which is absolutely fine, but to be to be shortlisted for that was was wonderful, you know. And then we got the world-class status. You know, like the bottom left hand corner, we're a stem school, so we kind of offer some specialism and experiences in STEM and South Yorkshire is a perfect, you know, region to do it. And the bottom left is the Space Education Goldmark, which not many secondary schools got on the first time of going for that we did because in our STEM days. We have drop-down days where we focus purely on space and careers in space and what that looks like. We've done stargazing events with our parents and children in the local country park, so we're really passionate about a broad curriculum. At the same time, you know the music marks there Barnsley is. You know it's a really good music area. You look at some of the history of the local area with the mining communities and brass bands and so on. You know it's an important thing for children to do and our children really enjoy music and play music. So you know we've got the music mark because that's throughout Key Stage 3 and throughout Key Stage 4. You know the computing mark. Again, we're not. You know it's a broad offer for these children to come and do and the more recent ones are on the right-hand side.
Speaker 3:You know we've been given the inclusion quality mark, um and and um a center of excellence because of all of the support networks that we put in place for children, families that may need a little bit extra. Um, we've just been given the leading parent partnership award where we've been working with families and parents who have got a parent leadership group, and how we're welcoming and how we communicate and you know I'm not naive, we don't get right all the time, but it's about a culture again of trying to make this a family school and a community school and that's what I want. And you know, we're really focusing on raising aspirations here and giving children every single chance. So we've got the Quality and Career Standard Award that we got when we didn't even have a key stage four. So we got that with, just you know, year seven, eight and nine.
Speaker 3:But we've built in from the minute they arrive for you, thinking about aspiration, ambition to go into what career you want to do, whether it's an apprenticeship or university or a job or your own business and kind of doing lots of visitors and assemblies and programs to to kind of open children's eyes to what's out there. Um, so you know we're really fortunate and it's wonderful to have all these, um, you know, awards and marks, but it is testament to the work that the school and the trust are doing, um, you know, to make it even better for our children. So I'm just, I'm just really proud that we've got them. You know, it's great absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm just thinking like where do you get the time you know? Uh, to the, because I bet that you know they're probably not the only awards you've got. They're these ones that took off your website and there's a lot of hard work in there, isn't there?
Speaker 3:yeah, and that's. You know that my team are superb, they're a brilliant team of professionals and you know these are the ones that are coming to me and saying I want to go for the mark, the arts mark, the music mark, because they're passionate about their area. And one thing that I've said around when we appoint staff here is you know, we want to instill all that enthusiasm and passion for PE. It's the best subject on the curriculum, I argue and I don't know what time it is because it's mine but I want them to instill that enthusiasm in every lesson that they do. So those awards and those bids that they write, you know the staff are doing it because they're passionate about their profession. Yeah, so you know, it's just empowering them to do that and I think that's an important part.
Speaker 2:Leadership I mean on all the behaviors on the podcast that we've done, uh, one thing sort of jumped out at me that that I'm very sort of I've never really given enough thought to and I feel a bit, you know, awful saying that. But in episode one of the Behaviour Smart podcast we talked to Kieran, and Kieran was an ex-student of mine and then I didn't see him for 20 years because most of the time he was in prison, and then came out of prison and sort of turned his life around and I asked him you know what it? How important is training staff? And I thought he was going to say yes, of course it's very important, because that's what we all say, and he said his response was very different. He said it's not that important. He said it's not that important if you get recruitment right.
Speaker 2:It's recruitment that's important, because you can get staff coming to your school with the you know the most qualifications. They say you ask them questions in interview and they answer absolutely perfectly. You ask them questions in interview and they answer absolutely perfectly. What is it that you look for when you, when you are interviewing staff? Because it literally was and I'm not exaggerating here when I walked around your school. Your staff were just lovely and you know they were. I had lots of conversations with staff and and students and they were getting lots of support. How do you make sure you get the right staff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard, you know.
Speaker 3:I think we're fortunate that the journey that we've been on is exciting because it's something new and fresh and a free school and you're building.
Speaker 3:So that helps with kind of people being interested in what the school is. You know, the awards and things help. And then I suppose it's about the fit and I say to everybody on interview we're looking today for the right fit, but as candidates you've also got to make sure the school fits you, because what I say is from nine till three, half eight till three, I want everybody to give 120% for these children because they're the most important part of our school, and then after that to have our systems and processes that are rigorous and tight enough and sorted enough to make sure that then they can go home and have 120% for their families, because that's getting the balance right. So it's around kind of how we do that and our systems and again, you know our trust is superb at that because of our central team and our process in place. It helps the staff, so that that is helpful when you're interviewing people to explain that, because then I get the best out of everybody every day because they're not exhausted you know, sometimes of course they will.
Speaker 3:It's a challenging profession but I want them to be the best they can be for our children every day. So there's those things on interview. But I think it's just about character and I think one of the things I always try and focus on is my gut, you know, and as a leader I kind of think about that and when I meet people and think about their personality and talking to them, and I always try and relax people as much as we can on interview days because that's where you see a true character comes out, you know, and you see some of their enthusiasm and you see other bits at the same time that maybe you think, okay, that might not fit and it's hard. And you know, recruitment and retention in the profession at the minute is really challenging.
Speaker 3:But I think, you know, in the background I'm always thinking about psychology of things and makeup of people's character and what I'm looking for. And you know, at the end of the day I'm looking for that pure enthusiasm for for teaching and for their job. And if that's not there, then you know so it's. It's finding that and in the background, thinking about what character I need and and you know when it is really tough. Have they got the resilience to carry on and do they have children really at the center of what they want, you know? And are they going to children really at the centre of what they want, you know? And are they going to run through a wall for those kids? That's where the recruitment process, with the tasks and the questioning and meeting me beforehand, all those things come into play.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, and, as I said, we've got a really, really skilled dedicated team. I'm very lucky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean well or skilled, but you'd probably say lucky. But how do you, you know, with how many students do you have in your school mark?
Speaker 3:uh, we've got 760 at the moment um 720, sorry and then it's going up to 900 next year because we'll have five full year groups for the first time.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, cool. So so we obviously with that many students. You know, the best school in the world is going to have issues around behaviour, and I just wanted to learn a little bit about your behaviour systems for those students that are really struggling. So how do you support those students?
Speaker 3:really yeah. So we have a system across the trust. You know where you have warnings for behaviour in lessons and you know that's probably in eight out of 10 secondary schools nine out of 10, where you go through a system. But the important thing around what we do is use that data to identify some patterns and then try and see where again, what is that behaviour? Why are we seeing that? Why are children being?
Speaker 3:You know, if they get detention we've done a piece of work and you did a piece of research around. You know detentions don't change their behavior. They're a deterrent and they also help you to kind of think about well, how can we change things? But they don't. They don't change the behavior that a lot of the time they're a deterrent. So we use the, the internal data we get in lessons to look at patterns and see if there's children that are getting multiple ones, and then we start those needs analysis straight away and look at those graduated responses needs.
Speaker 3:So what is it from a pastoral point of view? You know, is everything all right at home? Do we need to have a conversation with parents? Is it something that's happened in the past? Have we got some trauma? You know what's manifesting itself in this behavior Is it that we've got an undiagnosed SEN need.
Speaker 3:So we meet weekly as a team to look at that data and we've got a system in the trust that develops and produces that data for us again.
Speaker 3:So we've got that at our fingertips and then it's pulling the right people together to say, right, well, why has this student got this amount of points this week? Why did they get removed from lesson two or three times? What are we going to do about it so that we can change that behavior and give them extra support if they need it? Um, so it's being smart with the figures that you've got in front of you and then thinking, okay, well, what does that go? And one of the things that I've, uh, learned a lot through my experience is thinking about triangulating your pastoral teams with your sessy and beating because sometimes they work in silos and it can't be like that so making sure that you pull the teams together. So that's kind of how we go. We will continue to keep adding layers of support until that kind of behavior pattern settles down, or it might end up then going for an EHCP, whatever it may be, to try and enable that child to have success.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I might not go easy on your ear, though, mark I'm a a student in your class, uh, or in a class in your school, and I'm sort of causing some low-level disruption. So what happens next?
Speaker 3:to get a warning from the teacher. All right, how would that happen? I that happen, they would say it. So they'd say you know, dean, you know when I'm talking you need to be listening to me, don't you know? Not turn around at your friends. That's your first warning, right? And then it then progresses up and you'll see this in every school. Then it'll go to a. You know it might be the second one, and we have a board that we put those names on so we can keep a track of it. Now, at the same time, we also have a board that has the positives as well. So when children are getting it right, what I want is an atmosphere in lessons where the positives outweigh the negatives. But what we can't have, and what we have to have all the time, is that learning is sacrosanct and we've got to make sure that that learning environment is right for everybody. And if somebody isn't, you know, following the rules or is causing some low-level disruption, we've got to try and tackle that.
Speaker 3:And we've got to help them and, okay, they may get removed from that lesson because they've done it three times or out of the four time go. We can then make sure that the other 29 are going, and then, behind the scenes, with the one child that's had some challenges, we then put the work in to try and find out why. And is it because they can't see the board or their their reading age is seven and they can't access what's in front of them? So therefore, it's manifesting itself in poor behavior, disruptive behavior, whatever it be. So then we try, then, and make sure that we put the support in place so we can keep reintegrating them into the classroom and they can stay and, if needs be, some of our children now are self-regulating on things.
Speaker 3:So if they're becoming dysregulated because they can't concentrate or they've got adhd or something around that that makes it more difficult for them. We're building in that bit now because we're going into secondary school of them recognizing how they're feeling, stepping outside the classroom for a little bit, using some techniques to kind of re-regulate and get themselves where they need to be and going. Sometimes they need a bit of extra support and go to our SEND space and talk through. We've got zones of regulation work going on in the background there where again they're thinking about how they feel at that time and then we build strategies with them to think well, if you're red now, we need to get you to green, so we know that's where you need to be. Then it's a use of a fiddle toy, it might be quiet space in the corner.
Speaker 3:So, yes, you have to have these structures in place and yes, there are times where people will think it's draconian and where we might have to put things in place. But my commitment is that we then unpick that and find out why, and sometimes it takes a while and that's the most important thing.
Speaker 2:You know, I I've been into schools, a whole range of different schools, in mainstream secondary schools. I mean, I was telling you, recently I went into what is probably one of the most controversial secondary schools in the UK. Bizarrely, I quite liked it and I didn't think I would, and I've been into a whole range of different schools. It and I didn't think I would, and I've been into a whole range of different schools. One thing that really interests me, because I think what you you seem to be putting the emphasis on is that that you see that low level disruption and that's really a student saying look, I'm struggling here, so what you do is find out why they're struggling and look into that and and help them so that they don't struggle. Um, I, when I'm interested, uh, this is just something that interests me quite a lot around things like the board. So, um, is this something that, uh, other students will see? If I get a warning? Yeah, what? What's the benefit in that? Do?
Speaker 3:you think I think a lot of the time the benefit is also for the member of staff. Yeah, you know there may be a couple of children that are doing it and I think for the member staff, their job is to deliver and be enthusiastic and passionate and all of their skills for geography, whatever it is. So at the same time, it's also a tool for them so that they understand the structures that I want to put in place in a lesson. They can use it as a little bit of a check reference for them to say, actually, well, that's the second time now and of course, in that our CPD behind the scenes with the staff is about well, how then do we start to de-escalate situations? Can we move them places? Can we do things? Can we go and have a one-to-one conversation with them when they've had a couple of warnings? So it's there for the staff at the same time and it's also there so the children understand where they are.
Speaker 3:And I think what we're really good at here is our consistency in our routines, so that if you go from one lesson to another and to another, it's the same approach. So the children understand there's no grey areas. They know what's. You know what's right, what's wrong, what the expectations are, and therefore it's a level playing field. So even some of our children that might struggle with certain aspects or could be on the autistic spectrum and sometimes struggle with change, that consistency of routine everywhere in the school really helps them flourish. And I know what you're saying. What we're saying here is we're highlighting on the board children that are getting things wrong and therefore what's the impact of that? What I try and do all the time here is think about the positives.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:At the same time celebrate. So we all make mistakes. You know I make them all the time, but then at the same time I get recognition and praise from people that makes me counterbalance those. So we'll do things like that externally in assembly at the same time you know one of the things I've said with our reflection room. So if they get removed from a lesson they might go into this room and work on a table with a curriculum booklet that's there that matches what's in their lesson. So there isn't a gap in learning. But part of that time is they have a one to one 20 minute session with a pastoral worker about well, why did they get it wrong? What could we do differently next time? Yeah, where they were sat, and we feed that back to the class teacher at the same time.
Speaker 2:And they also get positives in that room for working hard, for doing the right things. So it's flipping the narrative, as much. You know, I must admit I, I actually loved your reflection room and I love the way that that. You know, what happens is often in some schools, students are sent out of class and they're sent to a reflection room where they sit quietly or do some sort of menial task. But what you had is a system in place where they can continue to do their work because of the booklets and, and the booklets I mean, to be honest, the booklets blew me away because the booklets were, you know, they were designed for that particular pupil and their level of ability that they had. So they were still doing the same work, but in a simpler format and, and obviously they can go to that reflection room, they can carry on with the work.
Speaker 2:You know, because we do, we, you know we we send students out of class or sometimes exclude them or, yeah, suspend them and you end up they're missing out on their lessons and then it's a downward spiral, isn't it? But yeah, I must admit I, I did really like your, your reflection room and so okay, so I've, I've been showing low level disruption that's got worse. Um, in the end I've come out, I've gone into class, I've gone into the reflection room and I've carried on with my work, and then you said we get a session, then do we where we can sit down and talk to somebody? Yeah, and how does that go? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:So we'll go to the room and they come out of it. So again. Again, it's in a different space, it's a different venue, it's somewhere quiet. They go and talk to the same member of staff. So if they've been in there a couple of times, it's about that relationship building with that member of staff at the same time, and they can start to unpick the patterns as well.
Speaker 3:So we use some of the post-incident things that we did as part of your research years ago. You know, asking, asking the question about. You know, why did they behave in that way? What was it? What was the cause of it? Did they know? How did it make them feel? What could we do differently next time? Was it their fault? Was it somebody else's fault? And then they make notes on that at the same time and they keep a record've got in trouble for.
Speaker 3:Well, then we might go back and say, well, shall we have a look at seating plans? Do we need to move you away from job Times where children say, well, I can't see the board, but I'm embarrassed to say so, so they're OK. Well, we'll do it on your behalf then. So we try and feed that then back into the classroom teacher, so that next time they go there and this is a big bit, it's clean slate away we go again. We're going to sit you here because you said that last time. Welcome to the classroom. Here's your starter activity. We call it a rewind six and away we go on its chance to be successful again. Um, and you know, sometimes it takes a long time because it might be a more severe need, or it might be an unmet need that's never been addressed and it becomes then a habit of showing poor behavior because that's the go to rather than addressing, sometimes, what the need is.
Speaker 2:And that is the problem. Isn't it Around the time that sometimes, you know, I speak to a lot of teachers who, for example, the post incident learning, you brought that up there of teachers who we, for example, the post incident learning, you brought that up there. So, um, I'm going to schools and say, look, this is we need to do post incident learning. And they you know teachers have a tough job and they've got all you know, they need the time to teach the lessons they've got to teach. And they say, well, we ain't got the time. And I really feel for them because sometimes they just haven't got the time. But I don't know about you and you know, in my experience, if you, if you focus time on that post-incident learning, then actually you end up with more time on your hands because you, you're managing behavior less. Is that how you found it actually?
Speaker 3:yeah, and it is. It is hard. That's why we've gone with a system of the c1, c2s and logging because it, as I said to you, then freeze the teacher up to do it. What we'll try and do is make sure that there's always some kind of restorative conversation and that we've you know we've kind of built those bridges and rebuild them again where need be, because the child needs to see that that you know that teacher's not going to hold it against them.
Speaker 3:Um, and that's where things like post-ins, where we'll have a pastoral team that will pick that up who are non-teaching colleagues that are equally skilled in doing it and then can relay sometimes that message back to the member of staff.
Speaker 3:You know this is where we're looking at behavior smart at the moment, with using it to really support some of our children that are on the SEND register, and again how we can join that classroom practice up to what might happen, back to the SEND team, back to parent, and really have a place where we can put you know some of the issues that are arising from it, whereas sometimes if you're just logging the behaviour bit, you can't unpick actually what's going on.
Speaker 3:So you know what we've got here now is something called Together as One and that's where every member of staff will advocate for two or three children on the SEND register. So therefore, again, you're building those bridges with those, those children that you teach, and it's usually trying to be somebody in the in the form, time and and they just want to keep an eye on how they're doing and what they're doing and then you know, look into it, support them, go and see them every day, have a conversation with them. They'll have a conversation with parents as well as what the SENCO and the SEND team will do. So you know, we're constantly trying to build positive relationships all the time and it's a whole school approach. It's not the SENCO responsibility. All of our staff are buying into that because part of our culture and that is the key, isn't it?
Speaker 2:you know, at the end of the day, that's where it comes down to building positive relationships with students. If you've got a positive relationship with your students, you know they want to come to school. They look forward to seeing you, and it was great to see, when we were walking around the school, you interacting with students, students interacting with you in a really positive way.
Speaker 2:I absolutely loved it, and it wasn't just you, it was all the staff yeah and I think you know it's something you know positive relationships come from sharing positive experiences and if we're sharing negative experiences, then that's going to damage our relationships and it doesn't really.
Speaker 2:It's not rocket science, is it to say. You know, if you're nice to people, they'll be nice to you, and you know I'm a a governor for my sins. I did a podcast, um, with a head teacher of a school who, uh, right at the end of the podcast live on the podcast, asked me if I would be a governor at his school. So for those of you that watched that podcast and wondering what I said, I'm now a governor at that particular school. But he said to me recently you know, I think he said it in the podcast actually I asked him what the one piece of advice he would give to a newly qualified teacher going to work in a school, and you know the old advice, which was don't smile till Christmas. He said well, it's easy, just be nice. That's it, isn't it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, get to get to know. You know, my bit is go and find out something about them, get to know them, ask them a question. What do?
Speaker 3:they enjoy enjoy what they do at the weekend. You know, those are the bits that build those relationships and there are times where you will have to then be more stern and say, no, that's not right. But the other time, the boundaries then. And then you know, the next time you go and see, right, I said that because you did this right, let's go again. Now tell me about this. You know, we've got a young man at the minute who's got some challenges and we're constantly working to try and support you know. And then I've seen him today and he's come and, you know, drawn me a picture and give me a high five, because some of those things are now working, the relationship's not broken.
Speaker 3:It's hard sometimes when you put those things in place and they don't. You know they don't like that or they can't see why. But it doesn't mean that you know you can't do it. I think my philosophy as me, as a leader, is exactly that is, you know, yeah, I know what I want, I'm driven and I know, you know where the line is, but actually I'll do things in the right way and treat people in the right way and be nice to people, because that's what I want the children in our school to grow up being as well.
Speaker 2:So it is you know I'm going to change my uh views on this. I listened to uh diary of the ceo. It's a very similar podcast to this. You know. We've got just as many views uh, with stephen bartlett and he was interviewing the guy the direct ceo of snapchat and and they've got their uh, and I'm going to put myself on the spot now.
Speaker 2:Be kind, be smart. Oh, I forgot what the last one is, but the one that's most important is the most important value of Snapchat is to be kind. And Stephen Bartlett, we're asking him is that just like be nice? And he said no, it's not. He said, if you've got a bit of spinach on your teeth, and I go, don't tell you, because I want to be nice, where the kind thing to do is to tell somebody, isn't it? So I think being kind is really important. It's not necessarily being nice sometimes, but be kind to people. And if you're kind to people, you know they're usually kind back.
Speaker 2:I always talk about you've probably heard me talk about this before about imagine your students walking around your school with a jar in their hand and every time you're kind to them, you put a pound in the jar, but every time you you're not kind to them, you take seven pounds out of the jar because those negative experiences outweigh the positive ones on a scale of about one to seven.
Speaker 2:So it's not an exact science, but it's a really. I've always kept it in the back of my mind Because if you've got money in the bank, you've got a positive relationship. If you've got money in that jar, you've got a positive relationship. So every time we, you know, sometimes we're human, aren't we? And we sort of sometimes we might lose our temper. Sometimes we hear staff shouting at students and sometimes sort of sometimes we might lose our temper. We have, sometimes we hear staff shouting at students, and sometimes we've both probably done it ourselves absolutely, but and that takes seven pound in out of the jar, but if we've got a thousand pound in in that, we've still got a positive relationship, and I think that works with staff as well, doesn't it? You know?
Speaker 3:I think it's yeah, you know, if you look at our trust around, our values you know you talked about what snapchat said you know respect, responsibility, honesty, empathy. You know I think if you think of that, it's like honest, you're being honest with somebody yeah, you've got to have a difficult conversation or say, you know, you've got spinach on your teeth because you're being honest and that's the right thing to do, and sometimes those conversations are difficult but it's done in the right way again, and because you've built up a pot of trust and people understand why and you have mutual respect. Those things happen all the time. So I suppose you know that's the culture of our school. Again, it's doing those things all the time.
Speaker 3:Every time we see children, we smile and say good morning. We meet them and greet them at the doors. You know we do that. We say good morning. They say good morning back. We have something called a character card where they have like a little coffee card and every time they open the door to somebody or pick a piece of litter up or say good morning, we all have some stickers and they fill the card and when they've filled it they get signed by the tutor, they get a certificate, they get a chocolate bar. It's again building all those skills in adult life about being a good person yeah and you know we're really proud of those things.
Speaker 3:You know there's no award for that. You know that's that's just what we again, what our culture is around developing those things.
Speaker 2:It's about intrinsic motivation, isn't it? It's doing the right thing, because that's the right thing to do, and if we can teach people that, I think that's really. You know, your awards are great, but you didn't go for those rewards, the awards to get the sticker, did you? So you've got something to put on your website. It's about the values and beliefs.
Speaker 3:And I think if you take all those awards away and just come and see our children in our school.
Speaker 2:You see them lived out every day. Yeah, and I was going to ask you about that, whether you know you would. I'm sure you would welcome people to come and have a look around your school. I certainly felt very welcome absolutely anytime.
Speaker 3:You know there's lots we can. We can we can show people around pastoral, around teaching and learning, a bit more than welcome to to do it. You know, reach out, it's not a problem at all, it is a really special place.
Speaker 2:It's a really special place. I I before I even got there, to be honest, mark, I knew it. I had a good idea of what it was going to be like. I didn't realize how good it was going to be. But you know, I just think back and I'm sure a lot of people my age will look back and go God, I wish my school was like that.
Speaker 2:That's not yeah, it made me want to be there. Well, yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on, mark, and, as you've been warned, we always ask Behaviour Smart sorry, beh, sorry, behavior smart podcast people to share with us either their most embarrassing moment or claim to fame. So do you want to share one or both?
Speaker 3:oh, let's do, let's do both. I mean, you know you've got to the amount of embarrassing moments with dressing up for world bookman, all those things. You know there's too many, but I think one that sticks out um, when I was probably been teaching maybe one or two years, in a parents' evening, so we'd all done the run to McDonald's for us tea before parents' evening started and I remember sitting across from a couple of parents about I don't know, half past seven, quarter to eight, having moved the McDonald's down and as I started to talk about their son, just this massive burp came out. As I started to talk about their son, just this massive burp came out, big bite, floated across the air because I'd eaten it that quickly. You know, sat there, I started the meeting with a giant burp, so that was. I suppose that's one of my embarrassing moments, but it was all okay. You know, claim to fame.
Speaker 3:I just I enjoy what I do and I'm passionate about education. You know, claim to fame, I just I enjoy what I do and I'm passionate about education. You know, I wrote a book around leading inclusion in a secondary school because I know what a complex role it is and as a classroom teacher you kind of go to be head of year and then somebody says, oh, do attendance as well, and here's pupil premium, here's safeguard and be the safeguard and lead. So I wanted to create a bit of a kind of book of experiences and tips and strategies that I'd used and people had passed to me, so that if somebody wasn't doing that role, there's a bit of a go-to there to kind of have a look at things. I'm dead proud of that and some and it is a brilliant book.
Speaker 2:I read that book a while ago now when it came out, but it's still very, very current today. So when can people get that from Mark?
Speaker 3:Oh God, anywhere Amazon it's. You know, if you just search leading inclusion in a secondary school, it's on there. That's the usual place that people go to for it. It's on e-book as well, and all sorts of stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, Mark, thank you so much for coming on the being Smart podcast. It's always an absolute pleasure to speak with you and thank you everybody for listening and don't forget to tune in next time for the behavior smart podcast this was the behavior smart podcast brought to you by behavior smart, the incident recording system that improves behavior. Join us next time, and thanks for listening.