Improving relationships and behaviour in schools: ensuring safe and consistent environments for all. Joint action plan 2024 - 2027: 2nd Annual Progress Report

Theme 1: Setting clear national expectations for promoting positive relationships and behaviour in schools

Action 1: Create a clear and consistent definition and understanding of relationships and behaviour.

A priority identified for the action plan has been to increase understanding of what a violent incident is in a school context, in order to support improved recording and monitoring of violent incidents, and improve the identification of, and support of pupils needs.

New guidance on risk assessments for violent, aggressive and dangerous behaviour was published in June 2025. This uses the Health and Safety Executive definition of violence to support school planning around identifying and managing risk around a child or young person’s behaviour.

Work is ongoing to provide further guidance to schools on recording and monitoring incidents, including violent incidents. This will also inform the update of Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: preventing and managing school exclusions. Further information on the recording and monitoring work is provided at action 4 below.

Action 2: Identify good practice in evidence-based relationships and behaviour approaches, including consequences.

A priority emerging from BISSR, the relationships and behaviour summits, and teaching unions, was that further support and guidance was required around what is meant by consequences in schools, and how they can be used to support the promotion of positive relationships and behaviour. New guidance on Fostering a positive, inclusive and safe school environment was published in June 2025.

The development of this guidance was overseen by SAGRABIS, and led by a sub-group involving members of SAGRABIS, including COSLA, ADES, the EIS, NASUWT, School Leaders Scotland and respectme, and head teachers involved in the Head Teacher Taskforce.

Fostering a positive, inclusive and safe school environment also provides guidance to schools to support both early intervention and prevention, and to respond appropriately to support the needs of all children, as part of a staged intervention approach to supporting positive relationships and behaviour.

This guidance makes clear a range of approaches are available to schools to respond to behaviour, ranging from classroom management approaches, to support strategies and the use of exclusion as a last resort. It contains guidance on steps schools can take to create a culture of positive relationships and behaviour. It also supports schools to identify appropriate consequences, including a table of non-prescriptive example consequences developed by the sub-group.

The implementation of the guidance has been supported by professional learning and resources developed by Education Scotland and joint communication from the Scottish Government and COSLA to Directors of Education. This is explored in more detail under action 5.

Action 2 also includes a commitment to update existing national guidance on relationships and behaviour policies, consolidating and rationalising where appropriate, to provide clear, consistent and practical guidance.

This includes the publication in March 2026 of refreshed guidance on attendance ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1: improving attendance in Scotland’s schools’. The refreshed guidance reaffirms the focus on the engagement and support of children and young people and their families to secure attendance at school. Reflecting particular challenges post-COVID-19 and emerging trends arising from BISSR, the updated guidance provides new guidance on the use of part-time timetables, responding to long-term, persistent, and complex absence, and to young people being in school but absent from classes. Information on further action to support attendance are outlined within action 8.

The Scottish Government also committed to reviewing the effectiveness of its 2024 guidance ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 3: a relationships and rights-based approach to physical intervention in schools’ one year after its publication. The review is seeking feedback on the effectiveness of the guidance and how well it has been embedded across Scotland. The review will also consider the available restraint and seclusion data. The review report is expected to be published by March 2026.

Work has also begun to review the national guidance on exclusion ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: preventing and managing school exclusions’, expected to be published summer 2026. The priorities for this work are to ensure the refreshed school exclusion guidance is grounded in updated evidence and research, drawing on professional insights from across the education sector. It will align current policy and practice, including Fostering a positive, inclusive and safe school environment, risk assessment guidance for managing violent, aggressive or dangerous behaviour in educational settings, and Included, Engaged and Involved Part 3.

Action 3: Publish new national guidance on emerging areas of concern.

BISSR highlighted a number of areas of emerging concern within schools, and as reported in the phase 1 report, this was a significant focus of priority for phase 1, with new guidance published on gender-based violence and on mobile phones, and funding provided to support the training of support staff.

During phase 2, as part of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme, interim guidance on addressing racism and racist incidents between children and young people in schools was published in June 2025. This was followed in March 2026 by a whole school approach to addressing racism and racist incidents in schools, which includes guidance on creating a whole-school anti-racist environment, and responding to racist incidents experienced by staff and families. The guidance is designed to assist schools and local authorities to implement a consistent and robust approach to addressing and responding to racism and racist incidents in schools. Robust policies and practices in this area play an important role in upholding children’s rights and in supporting the health and wellbeing of all members of a school community. The whole school approach supports schools to consider how all areas of school life can contribute to and support the school’s anti-racist approach.

In response to the finding from BISSR that vaping amongst young people at school was an emerging trend to which schools were having to respond, new guidance was published in March on Responding to substance use in schools (including vapes and other nicotine products). This guidance supports education authorities and schools to develop or update local policies and responses to substance use among children and young people in schools and covers all substances including alcohol, illegal drugs, vapes and other nicotine products.

As highlighted in Action 2 above, new guidance on responding to children who are in school but not in class, an emerging trend identified within BISSR, was included in the refreshed attendance guidance published in March 2026.

BISSR highlighted the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had had on delays to children and young people’s social and communication skills, and the impact this had on their behaviour. The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), which joined SAGRABIS in January 2025, published a new report ‘Transforming support for children and young people with communication needs in Scotland: A partnership approach.’ This was produced by RCSLT Scotland, ADES, the Scottish Directors of Allied Health Professions, and the Scottish Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Leads Network, with input from COSLA. The report highlights the critical role of communication in learning, wellbeing and life chances; responds to rising demand and growing pressure on services; outlines a shared vision for change, with practical principles to guide partnership working; recommends a stronger focus on prevention and early intervention, sustainable funding models, and collaboration across services; and includes case studies from across Scotland that demonstrate how partnership approaches can make a real difference. The paper has been presented at the ADES Inclusion Network, the Children and Young People’s Allied Health Professionals Leads Group and the Children's SLT Lead Network. Many areas have been using the report as a framework for local discussion about transformation and financial resource agreements.

Action 4: Review all current processes for recording incidents including violent incidents, to identify potential means of streamlining processes and improving consistency.

During phase 1, updated guidance on recording and monitoring bullying incidents was published within the refresh of the national anti-bullying guidance, Respect for All, including clear messaging from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills that all reports of bullying should be recorded.

This has been built upon during Phase 2, with new guidance on recording and monitoring within behaviour-specific guidance on racism and racist incidents, which aligns with the guidance in Respect for All, and Preventing and Responding to Gender-based Violence in School.

A priority for phase 2 has been to commence further work to support the consistency of approaches to recording behaviour incidents in schools and across local authorities.

Work has begun on reviewing all processes for recording incidents. A working group has been established, which includes a number of representatives from local authorities who have provided insights as to how recording and monitoring is managed in their localities and examples of effective approaches. The working group is developing a set of Principles for recording and monitoring incidents, including violent incidents, with a view to improving consistency and confidence in reporting. These Principles are expected to be published in summer 2026.