• Before finalizing these principles, consultation with the headteacher, school staff, parents, and pupils is mandatory, and the school's behaviour policy, which includes school rules, must be published on a website.

• These should explicitly cover teachers' powers related to screening and searching pupils (for both statutory prohibited and school-banned items), the use of reasonable force, and disciplining pupils for misbehaviour occurring outside school premises.

• A key requirement is that the policy must not hinder teachers' statutory powers by including "no searching" or "no contact" policies, nor should they restrict the power to discipline for off-site misbehaviour.

• The school's behaviour policy must clearly outline all banned items for which a search can be made, specifically including prohibited items such as knives, weapons, alcohol, illegal drugs, stolen items, articles used to commit an offence or cause injury/damage, tobacco, cigarette papers, fireworks, and pornographic images.

• The school should always pay heed to their duties under the Equality act, the protected characteristics and those pupils with SEND when dealing with behaviour.

• Ensure the school's behaviour policy is clearly articulated, simple to understand and follow, and widely published (e.g., on a website).

• Set and communicate high expectations for all students and staff, demonstrating these expectations through actions and words, and believing in every student's potential.

• Design a clear vision of the school culture focusing on social and academic conduct, regularly referring to it, and translating aspirations into routines and expectations.

• Make behaviour a whole-school focus, ensuring it is a high-status topic in all meetings and planning, not just addressed reactively.

• Implement well-advertised, repeatedly demonstrated routines for all aspects of school life, such as corridor movement, class entry, and assemblies, to foster social norms and reduce uncertainty.

• Train all staff thoroughly in behaviour management, ensuring they are inducted early, continuously developed, and understand a broad range of strategies, including routines, appropriate responses, and relationship building. St Benet's Trust promotes the Norfolk Steps approach for this (although leaders are welcome to look at equitable alternatives).

• Foster strong, positive, and trusting relationships between staff and pupils, understanding individual needs and acting supportively.

• Employ a balanced approach to behaviour management, combining positive reinforcement, praise, and rewards with clear sanctions and consequences.

• Apply consequences consistently across the entire school community, ensuring certainty of response over severity, and using sanctions as a conversation about behaviour. These should aim to be restorative in nature and seek to change behaviour in the longer term

• Address low-level disruption proactively and confidently using techniques like non-verbal cues, proximity, clear directives, and tactical ignoring of secondary behaviours, to maintain focus and prevent escalation.

• Utilise data systems to regularly monitor, track, and analyse behaviour incidents to identify patterns, inform interventions, and ensure timely action.

• Involve parents and the wider community by communicating school expectations, providing opportunities for engagement, and collaborating with external agencies to support pupils.

• Make reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils and those with Special Educational Needs (SEN) when managing behaviour, acknowledging that rigid application of policies may be discriminatory, and offering tailored support.

• Where needed, develop and staff internal inclusion units to provide targeted early specialist intervention for challenging behaviour, aiming for reintegration into mainstream learning.

• Employ de-escalation strategies for challenging behaviour, focusing on maintaining calmness, avoiding confrontation, understanding triggers, and allowing for reflection.

• Use restorative practices to resolve problems quickly, fostering reflection and rebuilding relationships after incidents.

• Maintain high visibility of leadership (headteacher and senior staff) throughout the school day, at gates, in corridors, and in classrooms, to model expected behaviours and demonstrate support.

• Prioritize engaging and flexible curriculum delivery and well-planned lessons to reduce opportunities for misbehaviour and keep students on task and achieving.

• Address attendance and punctuality with 100% expectation, monitoring in real-time and implementing immediate reactions (investigation, sanction, or support) for deviations.

• Manage technology use effectively, typically restricting personal devices like smartphones in lessons to minimize distraction, with clear policies and consequences for non-compliance.

• Foster pride in the school and its community through celebrating achievements, maintaining a clean and positive environment, and promoting a sense of belonging among students and staff.

• Ensure that all staff feel confident in using reasonable force when legally necessary to prevent harm, damage, or disorder, understanding that it cannot be used as a punishment.

• Utilise formal structures like prefect teams and student councils to promote positive role models within the student body.

    ◦ Is our written statement of general principles regularly reviewed, and does it clearly guide our approaches in determining measures to promote good behaviour and discipline?

    ◦ Have we adequately consulted before finalizing our statement of principles, and is it published on the school's website?

    ◦ Does our behaviour policy clearly articulate and exemplify high expectations for all students and staff, believing in every student's potential?

    ◦ Is our school culture clearly defined as "the way we do things around here," understood, and subscribed to by the entire school community?

    ◦ Are our expectations clearly exemplified with specific, concrete examples, avoiding vague terms that can be misinterpreted?

Implementation and Consistency:

    ◦ Are our behaviour management strategies tailored to our specific school context, demographics, resources, and staff, and are they regularly reviewed and refined?

    ◦ Do we ensure highly consistent working practices and attention to detail in the execution of all behaviour policies and strategies?

    ◦ Is there a consistent, agreed-upon whole-school approach to behaviour management, with all staff on board, clear expectations, and regular training, modelling, and feedback?

    ◦ Is the message that behaviour is everyone's responsibility clearly understood and acted upon by all staff, from support staff to governors?

    ◦ Are we actively modelling, explaining, and promoting the shared values and practices that define good behaviour in our school?

Classroom and Low-Level Disruption Management:

    ◦ Is our learning environment conducive to positive behaviour, with an engaging curriculum and well-planned lessons that keep students on task?

    ◦ Are staff confident and consistently using effective strategies for managing low-level disruption, such as non-verbal cues, proximity, and tactical ignoring of secondary behaviours?

    ◦ Are teachers using calm, clear directional language and non-verbal cues to effectively settle a class and gain focus, without singling out individuals unnecessarily?

    ◦ Do we have clear school/classroom rules, a well-known motto/ethos, and opportunities for pupils to take responsibility?

Support, Intervention, and Consequences:

    ◦ Does our overarching behaviour management approach effectively balance positive reinforcement and modelling with clear communication of responses to poorer behaviour?

    ◦ Does our reward system genuinely encourage good behaviour, start each day fresh, utilise role models, offer tailored and refreshed rewards, and is it applied consistently?

    ◦ Is our sanctioning process clear, known to all, consistently and fairly applied, with appropriate escalation steps and parental involvement?

    ◦ Do we view consequences as a conversation, blending sanctions with supportive responses when students need help due to underlying issues like SEND or low literacy?

    ◦ Are staff trained in and consistently using de-escalation strategies, maintaining calmness, avoiding confrontation, and providing reflection time?

    ◦ Are restorative practices used effectively to resolve incidents, promote reflection, and rebuild relationships?

    ◦ Do we offer a range of targeted interventions, such as individual behaviour plans or inclusion centres, to support pupils with specific behavioural issues?

    ◦ Are reasonable adjustments made for pupils with SEND, adapting behaviour management systems, identifying triggers, and emphasizing positive reinforcement?

    ◦ Are exclusions (internal and external) used as a last resort, with clear processes, reintegration strategies, and robust administrative trails, rather than as a primary strategy?

Leadership, Staff, and Community Engagement:

    ◦ Are our school leaders highly visible, committed, and supported by a strong team with clear, detailed expectations understood by all?

    ◦ Do senior leaders consistently model expected behaviours, provide clear messages, fully support staff decisions, allow appropriate classroom management flexibility, and invest in ongoing staff training and development?

    ◦ Do we foster a non-judgmental environment where teachers feel comfortable asking for support, including peer mentoring or team teaching, when struggling with a class?

    ◦ Are we actively engaging parents and the wider community through various channels (e.g., technology, workshops, forums) to foster support and consistent expectations?

    ◦ Are we creating safe, sane, and secure learning environments for all students, especially those from challenging backgrounds, focusing on what the school can control to make a difference?

    ◦ Do our systems and policies account for staff workload, ensuring they have the time to effectively monitor and follow up on behavioural incidents, and deprioritizing less critical tasks when new ones are introduced?

Monitoring and Evaluation:

    ◦ Do we have robust systems for capturing, regularly updating, live monitoring, and acting upon behaviour data to identify patterns and inform interventions?

    ◦ Do we regularly use comprehensive methods, such as anonymized staff and student surveys, to capture detailed and qualitative data on behaviour experiences beyond formal records?

    ◦ Are we consistently maintaining our school culture through ongoing staff training, effective consequences, data monitoring, and regular review of standards?

    ◦ Are we regularly self-auditing our behaviour approaches, engaging in critical reflection, and sharing best practices with partner schools or trusts?

• All members of school staff have a legal power to use reasonable force to prevent pupils from hurting themselves or others, damaging property, or causing disorder. However, Force cannot be used as a punishment.

• Headteachers and authorised staff can use such force as is reasonable to conduct a search for "prohibited items" (knives, weapons, alcohol, illegal drugs, stolen items, tobacco, cigarette papers, fireworks, pornographic images, any article likely to be used to commit an offence, cause personal injury, or damage to property). However, Force cannot be used to search for items banned only under the school rules.

• Schools must acknowledge their legal duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and children with special educational needs (SEN) when considering the use of reasonable force.

• Suspension must not be an automatic response when a member of staff has been accused of using excessive force.

Searching, Screening, and Confiscation:

• The member of staff conducting a search must be of the same sex as the pupil being searched, and there must be another member of staff present as a witness (with limited, urgent exceptions).

• The person conducting the search must not require the pupil to remove any clothing other than outer clothing (hats, shoes, boots or scarves are considered outer clothing).

• Controlled drugs, stolen items or weapons/items that are evidence of a suspected offence must be delivered to the police as soon as possible

• If a member of staff finds a pornographic image that constitutes a specified offence (extreme or indecent image of a child), it must be delivered to the police as soon as reasonably practicable. Staff must never intentionally view or copy, print, share, store, save indecent images of children.

• Any search by a member of staff for a prohibited item (from the statutory list) and all searches conducted by police officers must be recorded in the school’s safeguarding reporting system.

• Parents must always be informed of any search for a prohibited item that has taken place, and its outcome, as soon as practicable.

• Schools' statutory power to make rules on pupil behaviour enables them to impose a requirement that pupils undergo screening.

• Any decision of a headteacher, including suspension or permanent exclusion, must be made in line with the principles of administrative law: lawful, reasonable, fair, and proportionate.

• The headteacher must apply the civil standard of proof ('on the balance of probabilities') when establishing facts.

• Headteachers must take steps to ensure work is set and marked for pupils during the first five school days of a suspension or permanent exclusion where they will not be attending alternative provision.

• A suspension or permanent exclusion must be formally recorded.

• Headteachers must notify parents (or excluded pupil if 18+) without delay of the period and reason(s) for the suspension or permanent exclusion.

• Headteachers must, without delay, provide parents with specific information in writing regarding reasons, period, right to make representations, right to remote access meetings, and right to attend/be represented at governing board meetings.

• Where a suspended or permanently excluded pupil is of compulsory school age, the headteacher must notify parents of the days on which they must ensure the pupil is not present in a public place during school hours (first five days, or until alternative provision starts). This notification must be without delay, at the latest by end of afternoon session on first day.

• If alternative provision is being arranged, specific details must be included in the notice or provided within 48 hours before provision starts (exceptions apply).

• Headteachers must, without delay, notify the social worker (if applicable) and VSH (if LAC) of the exclusion and reason(s).

• Headteachers must, without delay, notify the governing board of any permanent exclusion, any exclusion exceeding five school days/ten lunchtimes in a term, or any exclusion resulting in missing an exam/test.

• The local authority must be informed without delay of all school exclusions regardless of length. If the pupil lives outside the LA area, the 'home authority' must also be notified.

• The law does not allow for extending a suspension or converting a suspension into a permanent exclusion

Please use the model letters from the Trust's Governor Hub section rather than the LA model letters as these are Trust-appropriate.