Pupils in schools supported through a £10 million government scheme to improve behaviour say it actually got worse, an interim evaluation report found.
However staff reported much more “positive” changes in behaviour, and also felt “more supported” after the scheme.
Schools in the poorest areas also benefitted more, the Department for Education-commissioned report, released this morning, showed.
Staff positive, pupils less so
Launched in 2021, the behaviour hubs programme, led by government tsar Tom Bennett, matches “lead” schools, which are known for having a good culture, with “partner” schools looking to improve.
More than 650 have been given support either through a “core” 12-month offer, a one-year “extended” plan for those needing personalised help or a two-year course for MATs wanting to implement change across several academies.
When comparing the results of surveys conducted in the first term of the programme to those received towards its end, pupil reported a “negative but small” change in behaviour.
Overall, the proportion “rating behaviour positively decreased from 27 per cent to 25 per cent” over the period.
In schools with high deprivation levels, levels actually slightly improved from 25 per cent to 28 per cent. But in better-off ones, the “percentage decreased from 27 per cent to 24 per cent”.
However, staff were much more positive about the scheme’s impact, with those rating behaviour positively rising from 44 to 49 per cent.
Staff also recognised the scheme’s “importance in facilitating the development and consistent
implementation of behaviour policies”.
“Before the behaviour hubs programme, behaviour policies predominantly emphasised punishment, offering few incentives to encourage good behaviour,” the report said.
Staff noted that after intervention, “there was an increased focus on rewarding positive behaviour, which was appreciated by pupils, and on de-escalating incidents in class”.
Biggest impact in poorer schools
They also saw “rule-enforcing routines” introduced to “minimise teacher discretion and improve predictability”, with parents more actively engaged to discuss how schools dealt with issues.
Researchers found the largest improvements in “schools receiving extended support” and those with high deprivation levels.
The report stated: “Overall, the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data conducted so far paints a fairly comprehensive picture of the results achieved.
“Teachers, especially the SLT, acknowledge the programme’s importance in facilitating the development and consistent implementation of behaviour policies.
“However, pupils do not report significant changes before and after the introduction of behaviour hubs; in fact, in some schools, the survey data indicates that pupil perceptions of behaviour have slightly worsened.”
But the report said results should be “interpreted with caution” as surveys had a “limited focus” on contextual factors, including resources made available by the programme.
“It is perhaps no surprise that the only two factors to emerge as significantly correlated with change in behaviour ratings were deprivation levels and type of programme support,” it added.
But the evidence “so far suggests quite consistently that schools with high deprivation levels benefited more… and that staff felt more supported after the behaviour hubs programme than before”.
Staff shortages a barrier to improvement
Listed among the barriers to improvement was staff shortages, especially among those in senior roles. This was “given as the main reason behind withdrawals and extension requests”.
In some cases, schools “simply had too many staff absences”, while others were “involved in too many other initiatives”, leaving them with insufficient leadership resources.
“Accounts included references to SLT not expecting the programme to create such an administrative burden for them.”
However, the researchers stressed their findings into how change was brought about “have limited generalisability”. A subsequent data collection phase is “in design” with the aim of understanding the extent to which mechanisms for change “can be generalised across the programme”.
A Schools Week investigation last month found government had spent nearly £700 million funding 13 hubs as part of its push for a schools-led system to share best practice. But, they had only published four independent evaluations on how effective they.
