Consequences are “an important tool to help reinforce boundaries and expectations” - including “exclusion as a last resort”, says Scottish government guidance on behaviour in schools.
The main guidance, published today, is accompanied by another document for schools and local authorities on risk assessments for violent, aggressive and dangerous behaviour.
It comes in response to concerns that behaviour in schools is worsening and disruptive behaviour is often not dealt with adequately. At the EIS teaching union’s annual general meeting in Aviemore this month, education secretary Jenny Gilruth was asked if it was “going to take a teacher being murdered at work” before the government took “real action to protect staff”.
Exclusion concerns
There are also concerns that exclusion - where pupils are temporarily or permanently removed from school in the wake of an incident - has effectively been outlawed in many Scottish schools and is no longer an option for heads even in extreme circumstances.
Today’s publication follows the behaviour “action plan” published by the Scottish government in August 2024, which was a response to longitudinal research published in November 2023 that showed behaviour in schools deteriorating.
It found 25 per cent of headteachers, 8 per cent of teachers and 19 per cent of support staff had experienced violence towards them or others in the previous week.
In her foreword to the new guidance - entitled Fostering a positive, inclusive and safe school environment - education secretary Jenny Gilruth says school staff have “a range of consequences open to them…from classroom-management approaches to the use of exclusion as a last resort”.
However, the EIS teaching union says that “policies alone will not address the serious issue of violence and aggression” in Scottish schools.
EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley warned that “additional funding and dedicated investment in education” are needed, otherwise “little will change”.
“We need more than carefully considered words to make a difference, we need investment, and we need more resources - including more teachers and support staff in our schools,” she said.
The new guidance says that “‘consequences’ are an essential part of a supportive learning environment”. They are “about reinforcing expectations and boundaries”, “promoting responsibility” and the learning of “prosocial skills”; they can also “help children to feel safe”.
Examples of consequences
Examples of consequences that schools can use are listed, from asking a child to leave the class and giving them time to reflect and consider the impact of their behaviour, to placing them in alternative provision in school.
The guidance says that the most serious consequence, exclusion, is “a proportionate response when there are no appropriate alternatives, for example in order to facilitate immediate safety”.
It adds: “Exclusion is an appropriate and necessary tool which is available to school leaders in certain circumstances.”
However, the guidance says exclusion is “unlikely to lead to behavioural change” and that “the space provided by exclusions must be used constructively to resolve the situation and ensure positive and appropriate support is in place for all”.
Launching the guidance, Ms Gilruth was keen to stress that most pupils behave well in school. However, she added that evidence shows “young people need structure and boundaries to support their development and having predictable consequences helps them to feel safe”.
She said: “This guidance takes account of the concerns about behaviour I have heard from teachers, support staff and teaching unions, and will be an important tool in ensuring that they are properly supported in our schools”.
‘Teachers are being fed waffle’
Scottish Conservative education spokesperson Miles Briggs said: “Teachers are still being given no clear rules on when and how they can exclude violent or disruptive pupils; Jenny Gilruth only mentions it as a last resort.
“Instead, teachers are being fed waffle about eye contact, hand signals and merits. These are utterly insufficient for dealing with the extreme behaviour that we’ve seen recently in classrooms up and down the country.”
Mr Briggs added: “Rather than clear rules, this document is full of Holyrood blob buzzwords about multi-agency processes, positivity and inclusion.”
Scottish Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy said: “Teachers and staff in schools will not feel reassured by a laminated list of bullet points when they are having to deal with violent incidents involving pupils.”
Gavin Yates, executive director of parents’ organisation Connect, said: “We welcome the general aims of the guidance and its recognition that overly punitive approaches only lead to disengagement that exacerbates inequalities, and negatively impacts wellbeing.
“It must be pointed out that guidance on its own does not provide any extra resources, training, specialist staff - including speech and language therapists and educational psychologists that are so desperately needed.”
Mr Yates added that the recent report by the Scottish Assembly of Parents and Carers on additional support for learning had made recommendations that could help improve behaviour.
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