Policy:
Happy Days will work in partnership with parents, taking into account individual / family circumstances and the child’s age and stage of development. A consistent approach will be applied to promote self respect and respect of others.

Positive behaviour is encouraged, and is promoted by way of a positive role model. Positive behaviour is promoted through praise.


RESPECT: To encourage all children to have respect for themselves, for other people (their feelings, beliefs and values) and for the pre-school environment.

UNDERSTANDING & 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 and increasing ability to take responsibility for their own actions and to understand the consequences of their behaviour.

FAIRNESS & EQUALITY: to give children an understanding of how to be fair to all: how to share and give everyone an equal chance (within the context of everyone having different needs).

POLITENESS AND CONSIDERATION: to teach children how to be polite and considerate whilst acknowledging cultural traditions. In some cultures it is polite to make eye contact; in others it is not.

KINDNESS: to promote acts of kindness for each other and to assist children in ways of being gentle towards each other.

TRUST & 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.

As a staff, we hope to promote these aims and values through example and hope that parents / carers using the pre-school will join us in partnership.

We help children to look after themselves by:

• • Praising them: focusing on the positive things they do.
• • Helping them to recognise their feelings and express themselves in an acceptable way.
• • Encouraging them to ask for help from peers as well as adults.
• • Encouraging their endeavours, identifying and planning for their interests.
• • Building their independence through self-help skills.
• • Encouraging them to see the good in others.
• • Peer teaching (encouraging them to learn from each other).

We help children to care about others by:

• • Using conflict resolution.
• • Modelling appropriate behaviour.
• • Working on and reinforcing the understanding of feelings e.g in circle time.
• • Naming and making feelings clear including the consequences of their actions: reflecting back to children.
• • Being aware of the power of language, i.e. not being confrontational or negative.
• • Boosting self-esteem.
• • Giving time to listen and help acknowledge their responses sensitively.

We help children to be polite by:

• • Saying 'Good morning'.
• • Saying (and encouraging them to say) 'please' and 'thank you'.
• • Encouraging them to wait their turn.
• • Talking one at a time, listening to each other and not interrupting when someone is already speaking (all adults, including parents, as well as children).
• • Giving children clear messages.

We ask children to look after equipment by:

• • Teaching them about health and safety.
• • Encouraging them during tidy-up time: putting things away in the correct place.
• • Encouraging them to help mend broken toys and equipment.
• • Playing games, e.g. in circle time: putting toys in the middle and putting them away (‘Where do they go?’).
• • Having a group discussion in work time ‘How do we look after this?’.
• • Reminding them to tell us about breakages.
• • Looking after equipment ourselves, therefore modelling it

We help children to care about the environment by:

• • Making it as attractive as possible.
• • Cleaning tables.
• • Tidying up together.
• • Displaying children's work.
• • Picking up rubbish.
• • Making displays of interesting objects including natural materials.
• • Providing labelled storage.
• • Explaining proper care and use of areas (sand in the sand pit etc).
• • Teaching about the natural environment.
• • Modelling careful handling: noticing, acknowledging and praising positives.
• • Sharing responsibility.

Children explore a variety of behaviours at this age. Most we consider ordinary, particularly when they are new to pre-school. Staff expect to deal with behaviour such as inappropriate shouting out, having a tantrum, snatching and walking away at tidy-up time etc. Intervention will be mild and may include one of the following:

• • Using positive statement, e.g ‘If you want to throw something you can throw a ball when we go outside’.
• • Explaining our concerns e.g ‘If you lean back on your chair you may fall over’.
• • Giving them choices.
• • Having a class discussion or circle time about acceptable/unacceptable behaviours.

Staff will deal with more serious misbehaviour by:

• • Labelling the behaviour not the child, e.g. saying ‘I don’t like it when …’ or ‘It’s not okay to…’.
• • Using non-confrontational language e.g. ‘When sand is thrown…’ instead of ‘When YOU throw sand’.
• • Taking the child away from the situation.
• • Informing the parents/guardian.

Supporting the child may involve setting up an Individual Education Play (IEP) with specific targets related to behaviour.

EXAMPLES OF WHAT WE CONSIDER EXTREMELY SERIOUS:

• • Racist remarks
• • Inappropriate touching
• • Biting other children or staff
• • Threatening behaviours
• • Persistently hurting others

Our intervention may include:

• • Removing the child from the situation
• • When emotions have subsided, encouraging the child to face up to the hurt they have caused.
• • Seeking support from head teacher or manager
• • Keeping parents informed of any incidences
• • In certain circumstances we may phone the parents / carers and request that they collect their child.

ALL INCIDENCES MUST BE RECORDED AND SIGNED BY PARENT OR CARER AT COLLECTION TIME.

Serious incidents may result in a meeting with the head/teacher/parents to discuss the way forward. Occasionally, a shortened day may be more appropriate in order that the child’s experience of school remains positive.

Parents and carers are in integral part of our pre-school environment. We will work closely with all our parents and carers in implementing our school’s behaviour policy.

We aim to:

• • Share our expectations of behaviour at school during the settling in period.
• • Talk to parents about any aspect of their child’s behaviour which is causing concern.
• • Be fair, non-judgemental and consistent in our dealing with behavioural issues at school.

We expect parents/guardians to:

• • Communicate any significant changes in circumstances that may affect their child’s behaviour in pre-school, e.g. new baby, moving house, bereavement, divorce, separation and hospitalisation.
• • Reinforce expected behaviour to their child by talking to him/her when at home.
• • Support the pre-school staff in implementing the school’s behaviour policy.