Schools - improving relationships and behaviour: progress report 2025

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.

Over phase 1, SAGRABIS has been undertaking work to develop a clear national definition of relationships and behaviour, including violence, recognising approaches to this varies. The aim of this work is to increase understanding of what a violent incident is in a school context, in order to support improved recording and monitoring of incidents, as well as improved risk assessment and planning for support for pupils and staff alike.

This work is ongoing and the definition will be integrated into the approaches to forthcoming national guidance being progressed during phase 2, including recording and monitoring, risk assessment and Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: A Positive Approach to Preventing and Managing School Exclusions.

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

A priority for phase 1 was to develop guidance on consequences, in response to clear feedback from BISSR, the relationships and behaviour summits and teaching unions that further support in this area was required. This work is being developed by a sub-group of SAGRABIS, involving members of SAGRABIS and the Head Teacher Taskforce. The guidance seeks to build understanding of what is meant by consequences, and how they can be used to support the promotion of positive relationships and behaviour.

While good progress has been made with the development of the guidance, which was scheduled for publication during phase 1, the sub-group has emphasised the importance of this work being underpinned and accompanied by exemplification. In order to enable sufficient development of this element of support, the guidance will therefore now be published in summer 2025. The Scottish Government and COSLA have jointly written to Directors of Education to inform them of these timescales, to ensure account can be taken of this guidance in planning for the new school year.

To support wider understanding around the language and use of consequences, Education Scotland offers a professional learning module on Expectations and Consequences which has been delivered at school, local authority, regional, network and national level. Since August 2024 this module has been delivered to 86 West Partnership practitioners, 98 members of the National Complex Needs Network, and more recently, 84 practitioners from a wide range of settings attended a national webinar.

In addition, SAGRABIS is currently exploring further evidence-based guidance 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. This will be further developed during phase 2.

Action 2 also includes a commitment to update existing national guidance on relationships and behaviour, consolidating and rationalising where appropriate, to provide clear, consistent and practical guidance. In November 2024, the Scottish Government published updated anti-bullying guidance, Respect for All. The refreshed guidance brings together and updates the previous version of Respect for All published in 2017, as well as the supplementary guidance on recording and monitoring published in 2018. As detailed at action 5, Education Scotland facilitated a national online information session to accompany the launch, which can be accessed from its website.

The updated Respect for All guidance aims to encourage a proactive and inclusive approach to anti-bullying and supports all adults working with, or caring for, children and young people. It includes an updated national definition of bullying to simplify language and provides more examples of what is and isn’t bullying. In light of changes in young people’s use of technology since 2017 it expands guidance around schools’ responsibilities in relation to online bullying, and also provides clarification of guidance on prejudice-based bullying, taking account of bespoke pieces of work that have been developed around racism, gender-based violence and transgender young people in schools. The guidance also sets out clear expectations regarding recording and monitoring incidents.

Guidance for developing a local relationships and behaviour policy, developed alongside Perth and Kinross Council head teachers, has been published on the Education Scotland webpage Promoting positive relationships and behaviour in educational settings.

As a next step, the Scottish Government will undertake reviews of other existing pieces of guidance, including Included, Engaged and Involved Parts 1 and 2 on attendance and exclusion.

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

BISSR highlighted a number of areas of emerging concern within schools, and responding to these was a priority for phase 1 of the action plan.

Misogynistic behaviour has been identified as an emerging concern within schools. In March 2024, the Scottish Government published a new framework on preventing and responding to gender-based violence. This framework was developed by the Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group, co-chaired by the Scottish Government, Zero Tolerance and Rape Crisis Scotland. The framework provides guidance on how schools can address the underlying causes of gender-based violence, particularly gender inequality, and ensure appropriate action is taken in response to specific incidents. The framework includes guidance in responding to incidents experienced by pupils and also staff. To support this action, Education Scotland have now developed a scenario on misogyny for their Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) programme and a gender-based violence early intervention programme.

Scoping of further communications and dissemination in support of the gender-based violence guidance will be undertaken within phase 2. The Scottish Government will commission an independent review to establish positive practice and further areas for improvement, before the end of this parliamentary session.

In response to concerns about the significant impact mobile phones were having on learning and teaching, in August 2024 the Scottish Government published updated guidance on mobile phones in Scotland’s schools. This guidance was developed in collaboration with SAGRABIS and makes clear that headteachers can take the steps that they consider appropriate to respond to the disruption caused by mobile phones, including bans throughout the school estate and across the school day. The guidance also sets out expectations for how schools should develop their policies, including engaging with staff, parents and children and young people.

Another emerging trend from BISSR was the increase in children and young people vaping on the school premises. As part of the Tobacco and Vaping Framework, an awareness-raising campaign on the health impacts of vaping was rolled out to schools in November 2023. Schools were issued with materials via Directors of Education, including posters that were translated into nine different languages, an information leaflet, expert film by Professor Linda Bauld, newsletter copy, social ads and a British Sign Language film. An evaluation of this campaign was undertaken in spring 2024 which found most schools who responded had either used or were planning to use the campaign assets and nearly 9 in 10 found the resources useful. Schools also advised they were using the assets to support learning around health and wellbeing, as well as future lessons to children about vaping. Following the feedback from this evaluation, existing materials were reissued to Directors of Education in November 2024, for onwards distribution to schools.

BISSR also highlighted that support staff in schools are more likely than teachers to experience behaviours such as general verbal abuse (defined in BISSR as e.g. offensive, insulting or threatening remarks), physical aggression (defined as e.g. by pushing, squaring up) and physical violence (defined as e.g. punching, kicking, head butting, use of a weapon, throwing objects). Support staff themselves requested appropriate training to support them in their roles. To provide enhanced support to support staff, in March 2024 the Scottish Government provided local authorities with £900k funding to procure and provide professional learning for the support staff workforce to improve skill levels in responding to distressed behaviour in schools.

As a next step, as part of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme, the Scottish Government will shortly publish interim guidance on responding to racism and racist incident in schools, as part of the broader development of a whole-school approach to preventing and responding to racism and racist incidents.

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

The action plan identified as a priority for phase 1 to provide updated guidance on reporting, recording and monitoring bullying incidents, and commence further work to consider the simplification of approaches to recording all behaviours in schools.

In January 2024, Education Scotland published a toolkit to support current and developing practice in recording and monitoring bullying incidents, informed by phase 2 of the thematic inspection on recording and monitoring bullying incidents. The toolkit comprised a number of case studies under the themes of effective partnership working, high-quality professional learning, whole-school universal measures, anti-bullying curriculum, and involving children and young people.

In addition, updated guidance on recording and monitoring bullying incidents was published within the refresh of the national anti-bullying guidance, Respect for All. This included clear messaging from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills that all reports of bullying should be recorded, in order to ensure the necessary support is in place for children and young people, to monitor recurring patterns or trends, and to assess the effectiveness of policy and practice.

Work to review all processes for recording incidents, with a view to streamlining and improving consistency, has been identified as a priority for phase 2. Planning and engagement work has begun with relevant stakeholders, with work scheduled to commence in early summer 2025.