Behaviour

Great news! Thanks to Stewart MacKinnon, one of our QIO’s, the authority has secured funding to purchase every ‘Being Cool in School’ pack for each primary school within East Lothian.

Every Head Teacher has been notified of this new development with the ‘Cool’ initiative. The packs should be delivered by the end of May and schools will receive thier required packs when the appropriate members of staff have received training.

A training timetable will compiled and distributed in the near future.

Watch this space for further information!

There is currently a great awareness and emphasis on improving behaviour in Scottish schools. A number of reports and studies have recently been published which have helped to raise the profile of this topic.

In June 2001, the Better Behaviour - Better Learning report was published. The ‘BB-BL’ report made several recommendations for local education authorities and schools to help improve the standard of pupil behaviour.

The report on the Implementation of Better Behaviour - Better Learning (2004) provides an overview of the successful progress made since the publishment of the BB-BL report, and allows a means by which practice can be shared.

On Monday 2nd October 2006, a follow-up report was published called Behaviour in Scottish Schools. This was a study carried out by a team of independent researchers who surveyed the perception of authorities, head teachers, teachers, additional support staff, and pupils on the current standard of behaviour within schools.

From the key findings of the 2006 report, an action plan has been compiled that makes several recommendations.

- A Positive Behaviour Team will be created to assist teachers, schools and councils in developing and sustaining proven approaches to positive behaviour.
- Every council and head teacher will be expected to use an appropriate mix of new approaches that are known to improve behaviour, such as:
- Behaviour co-ordinators
- Staged Intervention/Framework for Intervention
- Restorative Practices
- Being Cool in School
- The Motivated School
- Solution-Oriented Schools