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Promoting Positive Discipline: Whole School Approaches to Tackling Low Level Disruption

NCJ Number
217843
Editor(s)
Pamela Munn
Date Published
1999
Length
67 pages
Annotation
This report presents examples of whole school approaches to promoting positive student behavior and intervening in low level disruption in Scotland.
Abstract
Research has indicated that schools can do much to promote good or bad student behavior through such factors as curriculum organization, teaching approaches, reward and sanction systems, pupil involvement in decisionmaking, and having high expectations for positive relationships. In each of the 15 chapters included in this report, a different school is profiled and its particular program or approach that promotes positive student behavior is described. Particular programs and approaches profiled include the use of staff development to promote positive behavior, partnering with parents and students to review school expectations, and a program that uses the playground to promote positive discipline. This playground program, implemented at Coalsnaughton Primary School and Park Primary School in Scotland, focuses on devising schemes of support in the playground that help students to benefit fully from recreation time and to minimize playground conflicts that often spill over into the classroom. Other programs and approaches profiled include a praising and rewarding system for positive student behavior implemented at Trinity Primary School, a program of playground projects and positive discipline, a self-esteem program, and the introduction of the “Discipline for Learning” Scheme at Tynecastle High, which emphasizes codes of conduct and a negative sanctions and positive rewards system. Also discussed in this report is the use of a discipline referrals database to promote positive discipline, Banff Academy’s positive approaches to behavior program, the development of home-school partnerships, and the Action on Ethos program implemented at Keith Grammar School. The Positive Praise Program and the Partnership Support Base and Positive Discipline program are also highlighted along with the Local Authority Approach to promoting positive discipline of the City of Edinburgh (Scotland) Council. In each description, school facts are offered along with key points on the development of the programming, evaluating the program, and future plans.