Muirkirk Primary School and Early Childhood Centre is located in the village of Muirkirk in East Ayrshire. Currently 100 children attend the school across five classes. Twenty-eight children attend the early childhood centre. The centre also provides funded places for 2-year-olds. Ninety-three percent of children in the school live in Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation deciles one and two.

The improvement issue

Post pandemic, senior leaders recorded an increase in children displaying dysregulated behaviour during breaktimes, and on their return to school following periods of learning at home. Staff observed that children did not have the resilience to manage and resolve conflict with their peers. Class teachers and senior leaders were spending valuable learning and teaching time trying to resolve playground issues. Senior leaders also identified, a lack of consistency in the language and approaches used by staff to support children to regulate and resolve conflict with their peers.

Senior leaders recognised that the school vision and values were out of date and no longer relevant to the context of the school. Similarly, the school’s behaviour policy was also out of date, and it did not reflect current national guidance. The policy needed to be more focussed on building and managing positive relationships.

What Muirkirk Primary did

Senior leaders worked in partnership with children, parents, staff, partners and community members to develop a more strategic approach to tackle identified issues. Dysregulated behaviour displayed by children and out of date policies were identified as priorities for action, to better meet the health and wellbeing needs of children. As a result, in partnership with stakeholders, a new vision and values for the school were developed and a range of interventions were identified and implemented.

The vision and values consultation involved:

• speaking to children about the purpose and value of a school vision and core values;
• gathering the views of all stakeholders on what the vision and values should be;
• distilling the feedback gathered into common themes and establishing the ten most popular visions and values; and
• the whole school community voted for the vision and values that most reflected the school ethos and ambition for learners.

The school community agreed on the vision ‘Every student counts and every moment matters’ along with the core values of successful, happy, achieving, respectful and positive (SHARP).

Senior leaders worked with the school community to ensure everyone understood the new vision and values, and that these underpinned all aspects of the work of the school. This included;

• the vision and values displayed throughout the school and local community;
• the whole school-house token reward system aligned with the school values;
• weekly whole school assemblies where SHARP Superhero Certificates are presented to recognise and celebrate children who have successfully displayed the school values;
• the school’s online platform was used to promote and celebrate successes and increase parents' awareness of the values in action: and
• staff supporting children to make meaningful links between the values and wellbeing indicators.

Senior leaders worked with children, parents, staff and partners to review and update the school’s positive behaviour policy. The new policy is themed around positive relationships rather than behaviour. It reflects national guidance and the new approaches staff have introduced to support children to manage their relationships with others. The policy sets out expectations to help develop a shared understanding and a more consistent approach to supporting social, emotional and behavioural needs. Senior leaders created a flow chart, which details the process for how staff should respond to incidents. The policy and flow chart are shared with children, parents and staff. Teachers deliver lessons to children to learn how to take responsibility and accept the consequences for their own actions. Senior leaders follow national and local authority guidance to tackle any bullying promptly and firmly.

Children have taken over the responsibility for promoting positive relationships in the playground, through a playground buddy initiative. Older children are trained in leading restorative conversations with others. The playground buddies have fortnightly meetings with support staff to discuss any issues in the playground. During these meetings, children and staff review what is working well, what is not and solutions to improve any issues.

To tackle children’s dysregulated behaviour and improve their strategies for conflict resolution all staff, including office and catering staff were trained in restorative approaches. As a result, all staff now use restorative approaches to support children to find their own solutions to resolve difficulties with their peers. When playground incidents arise, all staff now use restorative questions effectively. They encourage children to take personal responsibility for their actions and find agreed solutions to solve the issue or repair the relationship. The school values are used during restorative conservations, providing children with a shared language when reflecting on ‘something’ that needs resolved.

The school utilised Pupil Equity Funding, to fund a whole school universal health and wellbeing (HWB) programme. The programme contains lessons across all stages that provided a clear progression in knowledge and skills. This helps children to build on their prior learning. The programme helps children learn how to:

• regulate their emotions;
• increase their understanding of emotions; and
• encourages them to stop and think, before acting in different situations.

During the implementation stage, staff received one to one coaching from an external organisation. The coaching approach provided staff with ongoing support to transfer what they have learned during training sessions to actual practice. The school has been recognised and accredited by the external organisation for introducing a model of good practice that places high importance on children’s wellbeing.

Senior leaders recognised that some children required greater support than the universal support available. To address this, staff undertook a range of professional learning. This included a focus on nurturing approaches, trauma informed practice and dyadic developmental practice (a broad approach for parenting and caring for children). Children can now access a range of targeted support available within the school. This includes nurture groups, bereavement support, managing anxiety and counselling.

A HWB assessment is completed termly by children and teachers to monitor children’s wellbeing. This allows staff to track children’s wellbeing against the wellbeing indicators. Senior leaders and staff analyse this data at an individual child, class, year group and whole school level. This supports staff to better meet the needs of individual children and address any HWB that arise. Teachers, develop lessons to address emerging themes at a class level. Senior leaders use assemblies to address whole school themes.

What the sustained impact has been

All stakeholders are aware of the new vision and values. They all work in partnership to ensure these are upheld within the school community. This consistency ensures there is shared understanding of expectations. Every member of the school community, now plays a significant part in exemplifying the shared vision ‘every child counts and every moment matters.’

The new positive relationships policy promotes the values of forgiveness and reconciliation through a restorative approach. It also encourages the use of ‘control signals’ to help children to recognise their feelings, regulate and make positive choices. As a result, all staff have seen a significant (80%) decline in the number of dysregulated incidents, particularly in the playground. There has been a decline in the number of bullying incidents recorded.

By upskilling staff through professional learning, all staff have a better awareness and understanding of children's development. They have developed well understood strategies to respond to behaviour in an appropriate and proportionate way. Staff take into account the HWB of the child and develop an understanding of the reasons that led to such behaviour.

The new HWB programme ensures a progressive approach to teaching children social and emotional strategies throughout nursery and primary school. Children’s participation in HWB lessons is resulting in improved regulation of their emotions and development of a wider range of positive strategies to use in different situations.

Through tracking individual HWB targets senior leaders have evidence that most children accessing targeted support are achieving their individualised targets.

Relationships between children and staff have been strengthened and there are now less classroom and playground incidents that require senior leaders' intervention.

Through the introduction of a range of strategies, all staff are now more equipped and confident to support the development of positive behaviours. This contributes to a calm and inclusive learning community.