Behaviour and Attendance (B&A)
and Social and Emotional
Aspects of Learning (SEAL)
The National Strategies’ B&A and SEAL programme is focused on actively promoting positive behaviour and regular attendance and developing pupils’ social and emotional skills. This is aimed at developing confident and effective learners to give them the skills they will need throughout their lives.
Behaviour
Support is available for all schools on data analysis, action planning and embedding whole-school approaches to promote positive behaviour. Supporting materials, including toolkit units to support focused improvement on key issues, are available at:
www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/secondary/keystage3/issues/behaviour/strandpubba_
Work on specific aspects with year groups, in subjects and classrooms is offered by consultants based in the local authority. Additionally, local networks are held for school B&A and SEAL leaders which will enable colleagues to keep up to date with developments and collaborate on common challenges.
Attendance
Support is also available through the LA attendance lead to promote whole-school approaches to improve
regular attendance. It includes sharpening school systems on monitoring attendance and rigorous data
analysis to highlight where best to take action.
Guidance has recently been published on attendance that includes policy issues, self-review frameworks and
successful practice. It is available at:
www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/secondary/keystage3/issues/behaviour/focus/attendance_manual
SEAL
SEAL provides a framework to support the development of social and emotional skills through all aspects of school life. It makes a key contribution to the five Every Child Matters outcomes and helps meet the aims of the new Secondary Curriculum.
In the SEAL guidance booklet and on the website (www.bandapilot.org.uk) you will find a wealth of material to support a school to:
- promote the learning of social and emotional skills explicitly in all subjects, including PSHE;
- review policy and practice across the school;
- consider how the school environment and climate support the social and emotional development and well-being of all members of the school community;
- develop learning and teaching approaches that implicitly promote social and emotional skills;
- provide staff training opportunities that involve staff in the process of developing SEAL in the school;
- involve pupils and parents/carers.
At St. Thomas More School, Greenwich, staff plan ‘SEAL themes’ to be introduced in all subjects across Year 7; subject teachers share SEAL learning objectives with pupils and actively promote them; a SEAL problemsolving group made up of two pupils from each year group considers how SEAL can be implemented across the school (their first venture was to encourage pupils to resolve conflicts peacefully through the members of the group introducing their ideas to all classes across the school and organising a poster campaign).
At Hele's School, Plymouth, social and emotional skills are an integral part of the curriculum with
opportunities for pupils to learn and explore social and emotional skills as they discover, for example,
Shakespeare, or learn about natural disasters in geography.
At Newall Green School, Manchester, recognised as an outstanding school by Ofsted, SEAL is used as a tool for school improvement with positive pupil behaviour and ability to learn resulting in improved standards of achievement. Neil Wilson, headteacher, offers a simple answer when asked why a school should embark upon SEAL – ‘It works!’
Related to all the above is the National Programme for Specialist Leaders of Behaviour and Attendance (NPSLBA) that offers a professional development programme for staff in your school from senior colleagues through to subject leaders, teachers and support staff.
For more information email us at:
support.npslba@nationalstrategies.co.uk, call the NPSLBA support line on 0118 918 2555 or write to us at
NPSLBA and NBAE, National Strategies B&A Programme, 1 New Century Place, East Street, Reading RG1 4QH.