Behaviour – St Mary and St Peter Catholic Primary School

Our Mission

At St Mary and St Peter Catholic Primary School the staff, governors and parents/carers consider the encouragement of good behaviour an important part of the philosophy of the school. Set within the ethos of the Catholic Church and the principles it upholds, it is reflected in the mission statement of our school:

Through nurturing, trust and strong relationships, our learning adventure will see each and everyone of us thrive in God’s love.

Our aims and objectives

It is a primary aim of our school that every member of the school community feels valued and respected, and that each person is treated fairly and well. We are a caring community, whose values are built on mutual trust and respect for all. Our School values, believe, respect, trust and love are the foundations of which everything we do are built upon.

Our Aims are:

❖ To promote an environment in which everyone feels happy, safe and secure.

❖ To promote self-esteem, self-discipline and positive relationships

❖ To allow everyone to work together in an effective and considerate way.

❖ To define acceptable standards of behaviour

❖ To ensure consistency of response to both positive and negative behaviour

❖ To ensure that the school’s expectations and strategies are widely known and understood by all stakeholders.

❖ To encourage the involvement of both home and school in the implementation of this policy.

Partnerships with parents/carers

We believe that partnership with parents is essential. Based on good relationships and effective communication, it will contribute to the success of pupils in the school. Our relationship with parents/carers is based on the below key principles, which form a contract between parent and school upon acceptance of a place for their child at this school.

At St Mary and St Peter our parents:

· are involved at an early stage when a pupil's behaviour causes concern

· attend parents’ evenings

· attend meetings to discuss their child as requested

· check and update their child’s planner and reading log

· support the school in achieving a minimum of 95% attendance rate for their child

support and abide by all policies and procedures in place upon enrolment of their child and as amended from time to time.

Encouraging positive behaviour

The best way to encourage positive behaviour is through our own behaviour as role models, acknowledging good behaviours and reinforcing expectations.

School assemblies are used to explicitly teach values and further enhance and sustain a sense of community and a positive ethos.

The school praises pupils for good learning and good behaviour at every opportunity. We want pupils to recognise that the rewards that come from the praise they get from both staff and parent gives them confidence and makes them feel proud of themselves.

Staff should strive to ensure that the giving of rewards is balanced, fair and equitable.

The school acknowledges all the efforts and achievements of children, both in and out of school. Children are encouraged to share their medals, trophies awards and certificates that they have gained out of school.

Celebrating positive behaviour

We praise and reward children for good behaviour in a variety of ways:

Teachers congratulate children for specific reasons:

1. Teachers give children house points. These are counted weekly by the House Captains and announced during celebration assembly every Friday. At the end of each term, ‘The House Cup’ is awarded to the house with the greatest number of house points and a reward is given to all the pupils in this house.

Every pupil in the school from nursery to year six is a member of a House. A child can obtain House Points for working hard or for exemplary behaviour.

· Our House names are:

· Seacole (Yellow House)

· Earhart (Blue House)

· Armstrong (Green House)

· Nelson (Red House)

Pupils can gain House Points at any time during the school day and at any extra-curricular activity led by a member of staff. All members of staff, teaching and non-teaching, can award points to pupils or Houses. Supply teachers can also award House Points.

The school hall displays the number of House Points achieved during the school year. These are counted by the House Captains each week and the total is announced by each Captain in the Celebration Assembly.

2. Each week a child from each class is nominated by their teacher to be ‘Star of the Week’. Each ‘Star of the Week’ receives a certificate in our weekly Celebration Assembly along with a Golden Ticket to a share lunch, and chocolate cake, around the Golden Table in the following week. Their names are recorded on the fortnightly newsletter to celebrate their achievement.

3. Star Assembly takes place at the end of each month in place of our regular Celebration Assembly. During this assembly, pupils can be awarded bronze, silver or gold star badges. These are given out by their class teacher for consistent hard work and resilience.

4. Children from each class are nominated to be a ‘Curriculum Star’ in most subjects. This is awarded during our half termly Celebration Assembly. Each curriculum star will receive a badge for the subject that they have been nominated for.

5. Heart of Gold Awards are given out during Celebration Assembly each week. These awards are for pupils who are actively involved in social justice (helping others in need) and for taking care of God's world. We recognise that this is not just something that the children do in school, so wider members of the school community (parents/parish) are also welcome to put a name forward. Some examples things that pupils have done in the past: Children have had their hair cut off to make wigs for cancer patients; have independently organised sponsored events for their favourite charity; and have without being asked cleared up the field and playground of rubbish. The pupils receive a wooden heart to keep, and one is added with their name and date, to the heart of gold display in the school hall.

6. Children are encouraged to become “100% attenders.” They are told how to achieve this standard and are acknowledged for their efforts at the end of each term with a certificate.

Weekly attendance for each class is announced in our weekly Praise Assembly and recorded in our fortnightly newsletter. Each pupil will also be given a house point.

Anti Bullying

What is bullying?

We have adopted the Anti-Bullying alliance definition of bullying so that everyone is very clear on exactly what we mean when we use this term. The Anti-Bullying Alliance and its members have a shared definition of bullying based on research from across the world over the last 30 years. ABA defines bullying as:

"the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. It can happen face to face or online"

An 'imbalance of power' is explained here:

More information can be found by clicking on the following links:

The Anti-Bullying Alliance Website