Behaviour Management Policy

Statement of intent

Stoke Gabriel Pre-School believe that children flourish best when they know how they are expected to behave and should be free to play and learn without fear of being hurt or unfairly restricted by anyone else.

Aim and Values

We aim to provide an environment in which there is acceptable behaviour and where children learn to respect themselves, other people and their environment. We work to help the children to develop the following values:

  • Respect: to encourage all children to have respect for themselves, for other children, for staff and for the pre-school environment.
  • Understanding and compassion: to help children to understand other people's views and experiences and to be caring and tolerant of them.
  • Responsibility: To enable children to have an increasing ability to take responsibility for their own actions and to understand the consequences of their behaviour.
  • Fairness and equality: to give children an understanding of how to be fair to all: how to share and give everyone an equal chance.
  • Politeness and consideration: to teach children how to be polite and considerate (acknowledging any appropriate cultural differences)
  • Kindness: to promote acts of kindness for each other and to assist children in ways of being gentle towards each other.
  • Trust and Safety: to show children how to keep themselves and each other safe and to give them the confidence to express their concerns and fears in an appropriate way.

Methods and Strategies

  • All staff provides a positive role model of behaviour by treating children, parents and one another with friendliness, care and courtesy, demonstrating different ways of being polite and considerate.
  • All staff use the same positive strategies for handling any conflict by helping children find solutions in ways which are appropriate for the children's age and stage of development - for example distraction, praise and reward.
  • Only one member of staff deals with each situation, unless they ask for support from another member of the team.
  • We use praise to help children develop strong self esteem and respect.
  • We require all members of the nursery to keep to the rules.
  • We provide children with appropriate script to helps them deal with difficult situations, such as "Stop it, I don't like it."
  • We encourage children to share their ideas, views and experience of home life to help them develop awareness and understanding of other people's view and culture and to be caring and tolerant of them.
  • We help children get an understanding of fairness by providing support when sharing toys, equipment. For example, by using sand timers to help them visual time and turn taking.
  • We encourage children to help one another and to share their abilities with others.
  • We praise and endorse desirable behaviour such as kindness, respect and willingness to share.
  • When children behave in unacceptable ways, we help them develop their ability to take responsibility for their actions by discussing other ways they could have handle the situation. We then help them understand the consequences of their behaviour and give them the opportunity to make amends; e.g. cleaning up, saying sorry, giving a hug...
  • We handle children's unacceptable behaviour in ways which are appropriate to their ages and stages of development - for example by distraction, discussion or by withdrawing the child from the situation.
  • We work closely with parents by keeping them regularly informed about their children's behaviour by their key person. We work with parents to address recurring unacceptable behaviour, using objective observation records to help us to understand the cause and to decide jointly how to respond appropriately.
  • We avoid creating situations in which children receive adult attention only in return for undesirable behaviour.
  • We never send children out of the room by themselves.
  • We never use physical punishment, such as smacking or shaking. Children are never threatened with these.
  • We do not use physical techniques intended to single out and humiliate individual children.
  • We only use physical restraint, such as holding, to prevent physical injury to children or adults and/or serious damage to property.
  • We do not shout or raise our voices in a threatening way to respond to children's behaviour.

If a child shows consistent challenging behaviour, we will discuss the situation with their parents/carers and we will work together to resolve the issue.

If you have any concerns regarding the managing of your child's behaviour, please do not hesitate to contact us. It is important that we work together on managing behaviour in order not to confuse your child.