Our Culture

At Burnside Primary School, we are dedicated to creating a safe, calm, and purposeful learning environment where every individual can thrive. We believe that excellent behaviour is the foundation of all outstanding learning and citizenship.

Our approach to behaviour management is rooted in the explicit teaching of positive choices, mutual respect, and reflective practices. All adults in our setting model these values consistently, ensuring our pupils develop a strong moral and ethical compass to guide them throughout their lives.

Our Core Motto: Be Safe, Be Smart, Be Kind

Our entire behaviour policy is anchored to three core principles. These values guide our daily choices, interactions, and routines from our two-year-old Budding Explorers right up to our Year 6 pupils.

• Be Safe We look after ourselves, care for our environment, use equipment correctly, and ensure that our actions never put others at risk.

• Be Smart We make excellent choices, focus deeply on our learning, show resilience when tasks are challenging, and act as proud ambassadors for Burnside.

• Be Kind We treat everyone with absolute respect, use gentle words, celebrate individual differences and actively support our peers when they need help.

How We Teach Our Values

We treat behaviour as a curriculum subject that must be taught explicitly. In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), children focus strictly on mastering the three core rules. As pupils progress into Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, our teaching follows a cyclical model where we introduce connected values - such as honesty, empathy, and resilience, deepening their understanding of what our motto looks like in action.

Our value of sustainability (Be Smart) underpins our wider curriculum, proudly reflected in our Eco-Schools Green Flag Status.

Promoting British Values and SMSC

Our behaviour framework is the vehicle through which we actively promote fundamental British values: democracy, individual liberty, mutual respect, and the tolerance of those from all faiths, backgrounds, and cultures.

Through a rich programme of structured assemblies, restorative discussions, and community events, we champion Spiritual, Moral, Social, and Cultural (SMSC) development. We empower our children to appreciate diversity and challenge discrimination, ensuring everyone feels welcome within the Burnside family.

Celebrating Positive Choices: Our Rewards

We believe that a culture of positive reinforcement inspires children to achieve their best. We intentionally seek out and celebrate children who live our school motto through a structured rewards system:

• Verbal Praise and Recognition: Daily, immediate validation of positive choices and exceptional effort in the classroom and playground. Golden tickets awarded.

• Colour Chart:  Children demonstrating exemplary instances of being safe, smart, or kind can move their name up a chart in the classroom, eventually reaching gold. 

• Celebration: Weekly Gold Stickers awarded by Headteacher ( teachers and/or the Senior Leadership Team to recognise outstanding character and learning achievements.

• Headteacher Awards: Special recognition from Miss Ramsay for pupils who demonstrate exceptional resilience or kindness.

Our Graduated Consequences Pathway

To ensure fairness, safety, and a predictable environment, we operate a transparent, graduated consequences pathway. When a child makes a choice that does not align with being safe, smart, or kind, staff use a restorative approach to help them reflect and reset.

• Step 1: The Gentle Reminder A private, low-level verbal reminder to redirect the child back to the expected behaviour.

• Step 2: The Formal Warning A clear statement explaining which part of the school motto is not being followed, giving the child the opportunity to make a smarter choice.

• Step 3: Thinking Time / Reset A brief period of reflection within the classroom or a paired class to allow the child to calm down and discuss with an adult how to resolve the situation.

• Step 4: Parental Engagement and Leadership Support For persistent or more serious behavioural incidents, a member of the Senior Leadership Team will become involved. The school will contact parents directly to work in partnership to support the child’s behavioural choices.

Inclusion and Reasonable Adjustments (SEND)

At Burnside, we are a proudly inclusive school. In strict accordance with the DfE Behaviour in Schools guidance, we recognise that some pupils experience complex barriers to learning and behaviour due to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

Led by our SENDCO, Mrs Corinna Burnip, we work collaboratively with families and external professionals to make appropriate, reasonable adjustments to our behaviour frameworks where necessary. This includes personalised behaviour support plans, targeted interventions, sensory breaks, and specialised mentoring, ensuring every child is supported with dignity and equity.

Anti-Bullying and Safeguarding Rigour

We maintain a strict zero-tolerance approach toward bullying, harassment, and peer-on-peer abuse. Any allegation of bullying is treated with the utmost seriousness and is fully investigated by either a member of the SLT or our Deputy Headteacher and Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), Mrs Jill Williams.

Our strategies focus on protecting the victim immediately, implementing firm and appropriate sanctions for the perpetrator and using restorative intervention to prevent recurrence.

The Home-School Partnership

Outstanding behaviour is achieved when home and school work in perfect harmony. We ask all families to support our behaviour policy by discussing our motto at home and working collaboratively with our teaching staff if behavioural challenges arise.

Our complete, formal Behaviour Policy document including detailed statutory frameworks, exclusion protocols, and physical restraint policies is available to download. Behaviour Policy