Schools have a “bit of a rumbling crisis” when it comes to behaviour management, the Department for Education’s adviser on the topic has said today.
Speaking at a World Education Summit event this afternoon, Tom Bennett pointed to research that found around one in five teachers did not think behaviour was good or better and that one in three did not know how to improve it.
He called this “shocking” and said that if research had shown some doctors did not think care was good, then it would be “on the front pages” of some newspapers.
But he also added that a “lot of good things” had been done on behaviour in recent years, pointing to his and the DfE’s Behaviour Hubs programme, which he said appeared to be “extremely effective”.
At the event, host Sam Freedman asked Mr Bennett: “Ofsted says that 88 per cent of schools are ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ for behaviour. Does that feel right to you? Does it feel like we’re meeting a much higher standard than we used to?”
Mr Bennett warned that it was important not to “overstate” data and it was historically “incredibly hard” to know what behaviour is like in schools.
“It’s been really, really, really hard to see whether there have been huge amounts of progress”, he said.
But he added: “I think that we’ve now gone the right direction in things like, for example, the ICT reforms, the Early Career Framework, the revision of the NPQH [National Professional Qualification for Headship]. Even some of the ways in which Ofsted itself now inspects behaviour has been revised. I’ve been proud to be part of many of these processes.”
He continued to talk about a recent omnibus survey of teachers: “I think something like one in five teachers reported that they didn’t think behaviour was good or better, and I think one in three of teachers said they didn’t know how to improve behaviour management, and that’s shocking.
“If one in five doctors said they didn’t think care was good, that would be on the front pages of certainly some of the newspapers.
“So I think we do have a bit of a rumbling crisis when it comes to behaviour management.”
Mr Bennett later said the Behaviour Hubs programme, which he spearheaded, “seems to be extremely effective and helping schools turn themselves around at a leadership and whole-school cultural level”.
And he added that a national behaviour survey, promised in last year’s Schools White Paper, was something that policymakers “really need”.
He said that this would provide “as close as possible to a nationwide level of data recording on behaviour”.
Mr Bennett said he hoped it would involve schools recording on an annual basis the frequency of misbehaviour and how safe staff and pupils believed their school to be.
Tom Bennett was speaking at the World Education Summit. Tes is the official media partner for the event. To find out more and access the rest of the week’s sessions click here
