Deanshanger Primary School is committed to valuing diversity and to equality of opportunity.  We aim to create and promote an environment in which pupils, parents and staff are treated fairly and with respect, and feel able to contribute to the best of their abilities.

Partnership with Parents

Parents working in partnership with the school to consistently reinforce the school’s expectations, as outlined in the Home-School Agreement, is an important factor in every child’s success. This includes ensuring that parents are kept informed about decisions made in response to a child’s misbehaviour so that we can work together in the best interests of pupils to ensure expectations for behaviour are made clear.

The school is responsible for communicating to pupils, parents and staff its expectations of standards of conduct. A range of policies and procedures are in place to promote good behaviour and appropriate conduct. These are:

• Behaviour Policy;
• School values;
• Anti-Bullying Policy;
• Home-School Agreement.

Supporting Pupils to Succeed

We aim to include, not exclude, and we approach all challenging behaviour in a supportive and positive way. We recognise that such behaviour can sometimes be symptomatic of a real, deeper need for our support and understanding. All children can go through times of inappropriate behaviour, and we strive to never “give up” easily on a child as we recognise that each person has a unique contribution to make to school life and we want to support them to achieve this.

We will use behaviour logs to assess patterns of challenging behaviour in pupils. Where patterns emerge we will systematically intervene, drawing up an action plan with the child, parent and teacher. The Learning Mentor is likely to be involved at this point, and working closely with class teachers, LSAs and the parents/carers. No exclusion will be initiated without first attempting other strategies or, in the case of a serious single incident, a proper investigation.

Reasons for exclusion:
• Serious breach of the school’s rules or policies;
• Serious risk of harm to the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school.

This can either be a very serious incident or the repetition of serious incidents.

Any exclusion will be at the decision of the Head teacher, usually in consultation with other members of the senior leadership team (particularly if they were involved in investigating the incident).

Types of suspension

Internal suspension

Internal suspension is when a pupil is excluded from the rest of the school and must work away from their class for a fixed amount of time. This will be in a different classroom.

An internal suspension is a discretionary measure where a pupil’s behaviour is escalating and more serious measures need to be taken but there are not yet grounds for an external/fixed-term suspension. Typically, a child receiving a consequence of this level should be receiving additional support for their behaviour, intended to help them to avoid their behaviour escalating to a point where a fixed-term suspension is necessary. An internal suspension may include a break time or lunchtime exclusion. 

Temporary / Fixed-Term suspension

A temporary/fixed-term suspension is when a child is excluded from school and must remain home for a fixed amount of time. This should be for the shortest time necessary to ensure minimal disruption to the child’s education, whilst mindful of the seriousness of the breach of policy.

Permanent exclusion

A permanent exclusion is when a child is permanently excluded from school and not allowed to return. This is a very serious decision and the Headteacher will consult with senior leaders and Chair of the Governing Body as soon as possible in such a case.

Reasons for Exclusion

A decision to exclude a pupil, either internally, for a fixed period or permanently is seen as a last resort by the school. The physical and emotional health of our children and staff is our primary concern and we, therefore, accept that in some serious situations, exclusion may be necessary if all other strategies have been exhausted.

The decision to exclude will usually follow a range of strategies and be seen as a last resort, or it will be in response to a very serious breach of school rules and policies.

 

Further information can be found in our Exclusion Policy below.

Click here for exclusion information from Northamptonshire  County Council.