Diary of a BSEM teacher: Part 3 Behaviour policy

In this series, Jock Allan, Teaching and Learning Leader at Brisbane Independent School, reflects on embedding BSEM in school culture and practice. Part 3 explores the behaviour policy, emphasising the importance of secure relationships and co-regulatory supports for students..

You can also read Part 1: Sharing Power and Part 2: Ready to Learn routines.

Some children find the classroom a difficult place to be. They show regular dysregulation and anxiety, or get in a state of fight/flight/freeze that our standard adjustments cannot quell on their own.

Students who have complex unmet needs will often require co-regulatory supports with a helpful adult who can, over time, support their capacity to engage in the repair process.

Sometimes, this work can and should happen in the classroom, and at other times the best strategy for that child is to move to a safe and secure place where they can be supported without the audience of their peers. In our school we have several areas for this.

Each class has defined repair spaces, both inside and outside, that they can use to ‘get out the energy’ or ‘repair and regulate’. These spaces are equipped with sensory tools and strategy reminders. We have a Learning and Wellbeing staff member who has a ‘Learning Lounge’ that is quiet and safe, and (if this person is busy) our Admin office has a deck to sit on (complete with office dogs to pat). At break time, we have small lunchtime ‘clubs’ that we run for students who find extended free play tricky to manage.

At our school, we hope that young people can get what they need. In all places, adult support is present and active. We prioritise co-regulation, de-escalation and solution-finding conversations.

Sometimes, we will pick up the restoration and relationship-building the day after the original rupture, when everyone is a bit calmer, and we can reflect and practice other ways of being safe and well at school. We teach and re-teach the expected behaviours and strategies.

We have ensured that our kiddos know that spending time on the deck, in the Learning Lounge, at the office, is not a punishment – it is a chance for them to de-escalate, regulate, repair, communicate, and collaborate with an adult.

We soon realised, however, that some parents did not understand what we were trying to do and what our methodology was.

The child, in our eyes, is not ‘in trouble’ – they just need help to be safe, feel safe, and get ready to learn. This idea is challenging for some parents to understand at first. They saw it as exclusion of their child from the classroom. And they challenged us on it.

We knew that sometimes, it is in the best interests of the child to be away from their peers and the learning environment because the speed bumps there are big, powerful, and full of stress overload. Sometimes, we need to support the teacher who is having a challenge with their own regulation that is impacting their ability to teach, so they might spend a little time away from the class too.

It is also a right for the other children in the room to feel safe and be able to learn, and if this is not the case, we have the responsibility to change this.

We realised that we needed to ramp up our communications with parents and carers to bring them on this trauma-aware journey with us. We needed to share our approach and our language with them. We needed them on board as partners.

As a result, we consulted and worked with families to re-write our behaviour policy and process to reflect what we were doing across the school, and why.

We firmly rooted this in the language of repair, regulation, and relationships rather than discipline. We took time to describe stress and anxiety on the brain, and provided a framework for tricky behaviours (Cool Down, Conference, Collaborate, Connect) that can be used by staff, students, and carers.

We developed a fridge magnet about working through challenging behaviours that reflected what we did at school when a kid was having a tricky time. We sent this home with our families after running a number of in-person information sessions at school, which we also recorded and posted to our digital platforms.

At our core, BIS has a strong ethos of inclusion and non-exclusion.

We want to support all members of our school community to understand that yes, there are times when students may benefit from extra regulatory supports – but they are never in trouble.

At the heart of our school values is ‘being safe and feeling safe’ and at the centre of our behaviour management approach is secure and attuned relationships.

This work will always be complex – for us, for students and for families – but we now have a suite of tools, policies, and language, and a strategic goal to openly share, discuss, and embed these across the school community.

How does your school navigate these complexities?

About the author

Jock Allan, Master of Education (Evidence-based teaching) has worked as a tour and production manager, PE teacher, classroom teacher, learning specialist, principal, leadership consultant and coach. Jock also worked with the Australian Football League supporting regional and rural football clubs to survive and thrive as hubs for volunteering and community spirit. 

About Brisbane Independent School

Brisbane Independent School’s mission is to nurture, develop, and trust our pupils’ innate love of learning. We aim to produce graduates who are confident, competent, and respectful, and to equip them with the skills necessary to continue learning courageously in all facets of their lives. We provide a supportive and flexible educational environment for the development of the whole child, including social, emotional, ethical, physical, and cognitive development, within a school community that supports our values.