Leading behaviour and culture – practice
activities menu
Internalise expertise
Select three of the following nine activities to submit to your leadership mentor.
Choose an activity based on your areas of interest and the results of the diagnostic review undertaken at the start of the course.
Implementation
Activity 1: Reliable data
In the scenario in the self-study pack lesson Make the right choices on what to implement, Sophia explained how she worked with SLT and her data manager to collect reliable lateness data.
Read the EEF guidance on Gathering and interpreting data, paying attention to the section on recognising weaknesses in data.
What can you learn from the case study and EEF guidance about collecting relevant, reliable data?
What action can you take to ensure your own data is relevant and reliable?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
EEF Gathering and Interpreting Data Summary
Activity 2: Active ingredients
The EEF’s ‘School’s guide to implementation’ includes guidance on identifying and prioritising the ‘active ingredients’ of a project. Read the guidance, paying attention to section e. Use the active ingredients to anchor the implementation process.
What key learning can you take away from the guidance?
How will you apply what you have learned to help you identify and prioritise the key ingredients of your own projects to improve behaviour?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
EEF Implementation theme - Active Ingredients
Activity 3: A shared understanding
One of the recommendations in the ‘prepare’ section of ‘Putting evidence to work: A school’s guide to implementation’ outlines the importance of creating a shared understanding of what will be expected, supported and rewarded during the implementation process. The EEF provided a simple template for users to share what is:
expected
supported
rewarded
Complete the template for a small, recent implementation activity.
How does this increase clarity and support a shared understanding of the project?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/implementation
Activity 4: Reinforce initial training
The EEF’s ‘School’s guide to implementation’ includes guidance on supporting implementation with professional development. Read the guidance, paying attention to the recommendation to reinforce initial training with expert follow-on support. Consider the implications of this for implementation activity in your school.
How will you apply what you have learned to your own activity to improve behaviour?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
EEF Implementation theme - professional development
School behaviour needs
Activity 5: Patterns of attendance
Researchers have found that patterns of attendance become visible well before attendance becomes a serious issue. Identifying the patterns and intervening early is an effective way of addressing issues while there is still time to have a positive impact.
Look at last year’s attendance data for a cohort of pupils (e.g., a class or year group).
Can you see any patterns in the attendance? For example, are there recurring absences for certain pupil profiles, days, times, sessions, time of year?
What could account for this?
What further investigation or action is required to prevent the issue from becoming more serious?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Activity 6: Behaviour audit
In the self-study pack lesson School behaviour needs, we share Tom Bennett’s guidance on creating a positive school culture. Appendix 2 includes recommendations for the design of an audit of behaviour in schools. Download the audit and read the guidance.
Meet with a colleague to complete the audit for a class or group of pupils in your school and reflect on the results.
What does the evidence reveal about areas for improvement?
What does the evidence reveal about areas where behaviour could be improved?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Bennett, T. (2020) Creating a culture: How school leaders can optimise behaviour, pp. 65–68
Behaviour audit.docx
Using data
Activity 7: Making data work
The section on pastoral data management in Making data work: Teacher workload advisory group report recommends effective approaches to managing data relating to behaviour and attendance without increasing workload.
Reflect on the report’s principles of effective data management and read the section relating to pastoral data.
Review your own management of pastoral data.
How do pastoral data management practices at your school compare with the recommended practices in the report?
How could pastoral data management practices be improved to reduce unnecessary workload?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Activity 8: Recording behaviour data
Effective diagnosis of need starts with the accurate recording of relevant data.
Edit the headings in the Behaviour data record pro forma to suit your own school context, for example, adding relevant locations and pupil groups.
How does the template compare with your own school’s documents for recording and analysing behaviour data?
Are there currently areas where data is not being collected or is difficult to access? For example, does the data you currently collect allow you to pinpoint the days of the week or times of day when incidents occur, or reveal which groups of pupils are most affected?
What action would you need to take to ensure you are able to collect and analyse relevant data?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Behaviour data record pro forma.docx
Activity 9: Acting on data
In the practice scenario in the self-study pack lesson, Using data, Malachy used data to justify expenditure and shared data to initiate discussion, encourage parents as partners in behaviour management and prevent behaviour issues escalating.
Reflect on an occasion when you have acted on data to improve behaviour. What worked and why?
How have you used data to justify action?
How could you make better use of data to encourage support and buy-in for your plans to improve behaviour and culture in your school?
Submit a summary of your reflection to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).