Behaviour Management Policy

Managing Behaviour Policy

Every child has the right to be cared for in a happy environment, therefore, it is important to ensure that all children know what is expected of them and what the boundaries are. To be able to achieve this, I have some behaviour rules which set reasonable and appropriate limits to help manage the behaviour of the children. I help the children understand my behaviour rules, which are realistic and I am consistent in implementing them.

The rules are as follows;

• what I expect from the children is reasonable and achievable, depending on their age and ability
• I make myself clear explaining what behaviour was unacceptable and why
• I am a good role model
• I listen to what the children have to say
• Good behaviour is always praised and rewarded
• Smacking and any other physical punishment or threat is not used at anytime – this includes children trying to smack or use physical behaviour to other children
• physical restraint is not used unless it is necessary to prevent damage to themselves; other people or property. If this is needed, I will ensure parents are informed.

There are several ways to deal with a child who is misbehaving or showing challenging behaviour and I will use different ones depending on the age/stage of ability of the child and the situation:

• Distraction. I will remove the child from the situation and give them an alternative activity.
• Ignore. Depending on the situation I may ignore the bad behaviour if I think it is being done to get a reaction.
• Discuss with Child. If the child is old enough to understand I will discuss their behaviour and try and get them to understand why this behaviour is not tolerated. I will ensure the child understands that it is just their behaviour that I do not like, and not them.
• Time Out. Removing the child from the activity and sitting them quietly for a few minutes
• Removal of treats. As a last resort, I will remove treats if I feel none of the other approaches are working.

I will never smack, shake or hurt your child. I will not humiliate your child.

If a child misbehaves I will let you know by writing it in the communication book that your child will take home (some children can become upset if the incident is retold in front of them). I will also inform you of how the matter was dealt with. In most cases the matter will not require any further action, punishing some hours after an incident achieves nothing but confusion and upset. If the behaviour reappears frequently a meeting may be required between us to discuss a strategy that we can both work towards to help your child overcome this behaviour. It may also be of benefit to your child to meet to discuss anything in your child’s life that could be affecting your their behaviour.

There may be times when I will need to physically intervene or restrain a child to prevent or stop an incident taking place, this could be when a child has or is about to scratch, bite or hit another child or run into a road etc.

I will explain to the child, in a way that they can understand that their actions are unacceptable behaviour. For younger children, this may be by my tone of voice and facial expressions rather than lots of words.

If it is necessary for me to exclude the child from an activity and use time out, I will encourage the child to think about why they are having time out and to then apologise to anyone who needs an apology. By encouraging the child to think about the reason they are in time out will help them to deal with the reasons why the incident took place and will help to stop it happening again.

If you have any concerns regarding the managing of your child’s behaviour, please do not hesitate to contact me. It is important that we work together on managing behaviour in order not to confuse your child and to ensure we are using the same strategies as one and other.