Children like to know where they stand. They like to know what is expected of them and most have a very strong sense of what is right and wrong.
In many schools if you ask the children what their school rules are, they will start on a long list:
- Be nice to one another
- Don’t run in the corridors
- Stay off the mud
- Ask people to join in your games
- Don’t shout out, put your hand p
I could go on and on!
But although they know when someone breaks a school rule, they couldn’t possibly hold them all in their heads.
And there will always be a rule that you didn’t know you needed until someone breaks it!
This hit home when we first opened our new 2 storey building and we had a staircase.
On the second day I came face to face with Charlie who was sliding down the banister. Leaping off at the bottom he looked up at my incredulous and angry face and was quite affronted when I said ‘sliding down the banister is not acceptable’ ‘I didn’t know that was school rule’ was his response and in fairness, I had never actually said it!
It was at that point I decided to simplify all school rules, we would only have 4 and they would encompass all other rules we have across the school. Those rules were:
- Respect
- Effort
- Kindness
- Safety
Every misdemeanour that occurred could be seen as breaking at least one of those rules and once they were embedded, every child in the school could tell me what the school rules are!
Leave a Reply