Schools - fostering a positive, inclusive and safe environment: guidance

Ministerial foreword

Evidence shows that the majority of Scotland’s children and young people behave well in our schools and the majority of children also report feeling safe in school. This is important.

However, the last few years have seen disruption and uncertainty for children and young people, with challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic impacting children across the world and the cost-of-living crisis impacting families in Scotland and the UK. Given the impact this has had had on young people’s relationships at school, their mental health, and their social and emotional development, it is unsurprising that the structured demands of the school day have been challenging for some pupils.

I do not shy away from the reality that staff report more disruptive behaviour and disengagement from learning than before the pandemic. I have listened to teachers, support staff and teaching unions who have shared their experiences with me and I am clear that schools and teachers must be better supported to tackle disruptive behaviour. And while the pandemic does not entirely explain the changes in behaviour, it has had an undeniable effect.

The impact of incidents of disruptive behaviour are felt throughout a school community. A young person being disruptive in class is not able to learn. Their classmates’ learning is disrupted. School staff are diverted from teaching to support the child or young person causing the disruption. When faced with the most serious dysregulation, the young person themselves, their peers or school staff can be placed at risk.

We know the evidence clearly shows young people need structure and boundaries to support their development and having predictable consequences helps young people to feel safe. We therefore serve our young people best by applying high standards and expectations in order to support positive relationships and behaviour in schools.

Consequences are an important tool for schools to help reinforce these boundaries and expectations, and with the publication of the Joint Relationships and Behaviour in Schools Action Plan last year, the Government has committed to working with Local Government to improve behaviour in Scotland’s schools. The actions that schools use in response to a child or young person’s behaviour can provide positive reinforcement where expectations are met or exceeded, or can support young people whose behaviour is not in line with their school’s values or expectations in a way that that reduces the likelihood of this behaviour occurring in future.

I am clear that schools can take the steps necessary to foster a positive, inclusive and safe school environment. Identifying which response is appropriate, quite rightly, is a matter for teachers’ professional judgement, informed by an understanding of the needs of individual children and young people who they know, and the particular circumstances surrounding the incident in question.

However, it is clear from my extensive engagement with our school workforce that staff want more guidance to support their responses to young people’s behaviour. This guidance is a direct response to that ask.

I want to be clear that staff have a range of consequences open to them. This ranges from classroom management approaches, to the use of exclusion as a last resort, where this approach is proportionate and there is no appropriate alternative.

This guidance should be read alongside other key pieces of guidance on relationships and behaviour in schools. This includes our national guidance on exclusion, on restraint and seclusion, and on risk assessment for violent, aggressive and dangerous behaviour. Underpinning all these approaches is our commitment to Getting it Right For Every Child and to the UNCRC.

Our schools and school staff cannot promote positive relationships and behaviour alone. It requires all members of a school’s wider community – staff, children and young people and parents and carers – to work together to identify the values that underpin school life, how this translates into expectations of behaviour, and to support appropriate responses.

This guidance has been agreed by the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in schools, and this demonstrates a collective commitment to the principles of the guidance. As local authorities have statutory responsibility for delivering education, it will be key for the Scottish Government and COSLA to work together to support the implementation of the guidance.

At its core, this guidance is about improving outcomes for our young people. By helping children to understand boundaries and consequences we are giving them skills for life and enabling them to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens, and effective contributors.

Jenny Gilruth MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills

Executive summary – key messages

• A school culture rooted in shared values, clear expectations, and consistent practice is foundational to creating a positive, inclusive and safe environment for all members of a school community.
• All approaches to behaviour should be underpinned by a commitment to upholding and promoting children’s rights, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), as well as protecting the rights of others, such as staff.
• Responses to children should always be in line with a school’s relationships and behaviour policy. This policy should promote positive relationships and behaviour, based on early intervention and prevention and set within the framework of early intervention and prevention, as set out within Curriculum for Excellence and Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC).
• A school’s relationships and behaviour policy should detail its approach to responding when a child needs support with their behaviour. Understanding the school’s context is key: approaches should reflect the unique needs and challenges of the school community and be embedded within a clear, accessible and understood relationships and behaviour policy, developed collaboratively with staff, children and young people and families.
• ‘Consequences’ are an essential part of a supportive learning environment. They are about reinforcing expectations and boundaries, promoting responsibility, and helping children and young people learn prosocial skills that allow them to actively contribute to and benefit from their school community.
• Engagement with children and young people, staff and parents^[1] is vital to ensure understanding of expectations, consistency in application, and buy-in for implementation and developing a sense of collective responsibility. In an empowered school system, this should include the co-development of policies to ensure they are informed by the experiences and perspectives of the whole school community.
• Consistency in approach does not mean the same response should be used for every child or in every situation. There should be consistent expectations and boundaries, however, the response when expectations are not met may be different to reflect a child’s specific needs and circumstances.
• Approaches to expectations should be inclusive and reflective of the diversity of age and developmental stages across the school community and framed in such a way that ensures children and young people are able to meet them, particularly those who may be disadvantaged or face barriers linked to a protected characteristic.
• Schools have a range of consequences available to them. In line with the national policy on exclusion, ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2’, this includes up to and including exclusion as a last resort, where this approach is proportionate and there is no appropriate alternative.
• The focus for responses should be on addressing a young person’s behaviour in a way that reduces the likelihood of negative behaviour occurring in future, or which reinforces positive behaviour and makes it more likely to occur in future. The emphasis should be on improving outcomes and ensuring positive and appropriate support is in place for all, including staff and other children and young people as appropriate.
• Effective support for children and young people often requires:

  1.action in the moment to ensure a safe and respectful learning environment by addressing behaviour as it occurs

  2.identifying underlying needs contributing to behaviour in order to put in place appropriate support for children and young people to support long-term change

• Schools should take a holistic view – identifying and addressing underlying needs through staged interventions, needs assessments and, where appropriate, multi-agency support, such as health and social work.