UK school behaviour reforms point the way forward for Australia

Only one quarter of students feel safe at school in the UK. Alarm bells should be ringing. The UK wasn’t paying attention and they let schools get out of hand. Meanwhile, in Australia, which ranks significantly worse for school discipline than the UK, we have no idea how students feel because we haven’t asked.

School behaviour is core to the UK’s education reforms; reforms Australia could benefit from. British government advisor Professor Tom Bennett recently published a report for the Centre for Independent Studies, “Conduct Becoming: the importance of the Behaviour Curriculum,” where he outlines ideas Australia should borrow from the UK’s education system.

First and foremost, he recommends implementing a Behaviour Survey. The road to recovery begins by acknowledging the problem. The UK National Behaviour Survey written by Professor Tom Bennett, found that “leaders thought behaviour was better than teachers did, who in turn thought that behaviour was better than students.”

We need to survey Australian students in a comprehensive manner to get to the root of the problem in Australian schools.

Professor Bennett goes on to recommend implementing a Behaviour Curriculum. The idea being that behaviour can (and must) be explicitly taught to children, to help them understand how to successfully navigate the complex social environment of a school.

It is clear Australian policymakers are realising the need to improve the state of behaviour in schools. Some practical steps Australian policy makers can take include:

1. Continuously revising initial teacher training so that no teacher enters the classroom without the tools they need to manage behaviour.
2. Creating a new professional qualification for all leaders, platforming evidence informed approaches to the institutional management of behaviour, focusing on the practice of the most effective schools currently operating.
3. Inspecting and holding schools to account using existing funding and licensing mechanisms. No school should be permitted to continue operating if they cannot guarantee a minimum standard of safety and climate for students and staff.
4. Committing to using an annual National Behaviour Survey to track changes of behaviour in schools over time.

School leaders should adopt a national behaviour curriculum and survey to improve student behaviour and school culture. These tools serve as a baseline for annual review, aiding self-improvement and ensuring staff and students are trained to foster the best possible learning environment.

Put simply, children cannot learn, and teachers cannot teach if behaviour is not understood and classrooms are not managed effectively.

To learn more check out Professor Tom Bennett paper, Conduct Becoming: the importance of the Behaviour Curriculum, released on 5 October 2023.

Professor Tom Bennett is the author of five books on teacher-training, behaviour management and educational research and is the School Behaviour Advisor to the UK Department for Education. He currently leads the DfE’s Behaviour Hubs project, and is a Professor of School Behaviour at Academica University, Amsterdam.