Behaviour Management
&
Token Economy
At Compton Dundon School we believe that positive behaviour is an essential foundation for a positive, creative and effective learning and teaching environment in which all members of the school community can thrive and feel respected, safe and secure. We recognise that positive behaviour for learning has to be modelled and taught and that the whole community has a responsibility for this.
We believe that in order to develop positive behaviour and self-management skills the emphasis should be on the pupils and assisting them in overcoming their own individual challenges and difficulties. As a school we strive to provide the support structures necessary to develop pupils academically, socially and emotionally to reach their full potential.
Behaviour in our school is monitored and managed using a token economy. The Compton Dundon School Token Economy is a positive behavioural intervention designed to run throughout the academic year for all pupils in the school day. It is aimed at promoting acceptable and social behaviour for individuals and as a community. It encourages the pupils to take responsibility for their own behaviour and also to work as a group.
Pupils will earn tokens which will equate to funds to ‘spend’ on desired items. The main ways to earn tokens will be through time-band ticks and academic awards. The number of tokens they earn can then be increased/multiplied according to their status (i.e Lower, Intermediate, Higher).
Bonus tokens can also be earned for achieving awards and qualifications. The bonus awards for qualifications deliberately increase in value to reflect the difficulty and time required to complete each of them. The increased reward is to act as a motivator for the pupil to want to put in the extra time and effort to complete the next award.
Pupils are surveyed to determine what items they would like to earn/buy from the spending shop with their tokens. Pupils are encouraged to use IT to broaden their knowledge of shopping methods and saving tokens by shopping for higher value items such as computer games, clothing, sport equipment etc online, with the support of their teacher or other member of staff. Items of food and drinks would also be in the shop to provide cheaper, achievable, regular rewards for those pupils that require a shorter interval reward.
Failure to earn sufficient tokens through the week leads to a natural consequence of being on a lower status and as such access only lower level privileges.
Inappropriate behaviour may also mean withdrawal of end of day spending privileges. In more extreme cases the pupils could be suspended from the token economy and as such they will not be able to earn any tokens (behaviour data will continue to be recorded for behaviour analysis) for a determined period of time.
Not only does the token economy act as a motivation tool for the pupils but it allows the school to micro-analyse pupil behaviour. This can provide information that helps to identify; triggers, frequency of behaviours, improvements or deterioration in specific types of behaviour, tricky periods of the day and inform future target setting.