Belonging and Behaviour Leadership Course

Course aims

• Gain an understanding of the evidence base linked to: restorative practice; increasing belonging; reducing pupil anxiety, loneliness and isolation; building community alignment; and how to distribute the leadership of high support/high challenge.
• Review strategies linked to delivering an inclusive behaviour curriculum with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) at the heart, and the power of inclusion linked to schools as places for social and emotional development during the era of social media and smartphones, and the importance of co-production with families and local stakeholders.
• Visit 3 different schools at different stages of their school improvement journey – developing, embedding and sustaining.
• Gain social support of colleagues on the course by working with each other, reflecting on takeaways from the school visits and the self-evaluation of their own school.
• Carry out an audit covering 8 core areas of school life giving them a detailed insight into what should be the clear strategic priorities for their own school improvement journey linked to the themes of this course.
• Constantly reflect on the notion that schools need to work hard on understanding the need behind the behaviour of their young people, with a strong focus on SEND.

Possible mid to long-term outcomes for participating schools (please note, that this will depend on the work done through your audit):

• Equip staff to better understand the 4 broad categories of SEND as per the SEND Code of Practice (2014) but especially reviewing the importance of social, emotional and mental health and how every teacher is a teacher of SEND.
• Build community alignment and cohesion.
• Reduce levels of pupil loneliness, anxiety and sense of isolation – enhance schools as places of belonging for all.
• Improve attendance, including levels of truancy and internal truancy.
• Improve pupil behaviour by better understanding the need behind what is seen and taking a systematic approach to creating an inclusive behaviour curriculum.
• Reduce suspension and exclusion rates through developing preventative policies and systems going beyond extrinsic rewards and sanctions.
• Develop systems and practices to better co-produce strategies and ways of working with parents, carers, families, and local stakeholders.
• Improve the Ofsted rating of the school which in itself will contribute to a higher level of belief and buy-in for the school vision and values.
• Show progress from the previous Ofsted inspection and the recommendations for improvement.

Suitable for

CEOs, Headteachers, Deputy Headteachers, Senior Leaders. Those who have the influence to implement the actions from the course.

For those working in small primary schools, you may still be able to complete this course if you are a Teacher with leadership responsibility and/or have capacity to lead on change in your school. Get in touch with us if you would like to talk this through before applying.

Prior training/experience

If you have recently completed a National Professional Qualification in Executive Leadership, Headship, Senior Leadership or Leading Behaviour and Culture, this will present a very good practical stepping stone into what you can do next from a training and professional development point of view.

Mark Finnis – Independent Thinking, L30 Relational Systems

Mark Finnis is the founder and director of L30 Relational Systems and has more than twenty-five years’ experience of helping schools and organisations large and small, both nationally and internationally to develop highly connected relational cultures with people at the heart of everything they do. Mark has also been involved in the national development of restorative practices since the late 1990s. Mark has worked with hundreds of schools and children services to build systems and practice that people at the heart of all they day. Helping schools and organisations to move the knowing, into doing and then into being. Mark has also delivered keynotes alongside audiences across the UK, Spain, Finland, Canada, the US to name a few. Mark is the author of the number 1 bestselling book, Independent Thinking On Restorative Practice: Building relationships, improving behaviours and creating stronger communities. In 2019 he received the Chris Donovan Trust’s Restorative Practice Champion award in recognition of his work nationally. Mark has advised on national policy and practice development since 2005 and was part of a small group who rewrote the national best practice guidance for restorative practitioners in 2012. Mark is also is a licensed NLP Master Practitioner trained and certified under Dr Richard Bandler and has been working with leaders offering coaching for over a decade.

Andrew Young – Co-Director of Pathfinder Teaching School Hub

Andrew has been Co-Director of Pathfinder TSH with Fiona Hopkinson-Kearny for 2 years and was successful in securing the Teaching School Hub status for another 4 years from 2024. Andrew has expertise and interest in areas of system leadership, distributing leadership of SEND and inclusive and responsive Teaching and Learning. PTSH engages with over 200 schools every year linked to the golden thread of teacher training and development and this success comes from a commitment to working collaboratively and collegiately with 20+ local and national partners who aim to ensure every child goes on to receive a world class start to life. Having secured DfE approval for the PTSH Adaptive Teaching CPD programme over 3 years ago, Andrew has worked with hundreds of staff and schools on building an inclusive classroom climate. He has worked with national experts on a SEND Champion programme which supports school leaders to distribute the leadership of SEND in their schools and this has reached 100+ schools. Where PTSH is Lead Partner, Andrew has strategic oversight of the Initial Teacher Education provision reaching a common cohort of 20 primary and 25 secondary trainees a year. Where University partners have received Ofsted inspection feedback, the ITE programmes have been praised for how well they equip Trainee Teachers to support the needs of their pupils with SEND and create an inclusive classroom climate. Andrew has worked in a number of roles in education since entering the profession ranging from: Teacher of Social Sciences; Deputy Head of 6th Form; Head of Social Sciences; SLT; and ITE Lead.