‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit’. Aristotle

We believe that:

• students should be encouraged to adopt behaviours that support learning and promote good relationships;
• poor behaviour and low-level disruption threaten the rights of young people to an effective education and can lead to people feeling unsafe, bullied, intimidated, or threatened.

Our Behaviour and Rewards Policy (available within our policy page) seeks to encourage young people to make positive choices and re-enforces those choices through praise.

Our ethos enables sustained concentration in lessons, rewards effort and allows learning to flourish.

We call our behaviour strategy the Choice System. The purpose of our Choices System is to;

• place the focus on learning … not behaviour
• place the emphasis on positive attitudes to learning
• provide a consistent whole school approach to behaviour
• implement a system where negative behaviour choices have consequences, and positive behaviour results in praise.

Our choices system is underpinned by our core values that make up The NDA Habits.

We believe that who we are and how we treat each other is an essential part of preparing for a happy and successful future, as well as achieving our best and flourishing now. As a community we agreed on five core character traits to become our ‘NDA Habits’.

We therefore strive to be:

KIND, OPTIMISTIC, HONEST, DETERMINED and RESPECTFUL.

However, we recognise that even when encouraged to make the right choice, some children will occasionally make choices that threaten the well being and learning of themselves and others.

We will employ a range of strategies to ensure these behaviours change and get students reengaged in learning.