At Highfields College, we pride ourselves in working with young people who have struggled for various reasons in their previous school to help them turn things around.

We understand when young people are struggling with lots of other things like accessing learning, experiences of peer conflict, perhaps things happening in their lives outside of school, the first sign we receive that something is wrong is through their behaviour. This is what people mean when they say ‘all behaviour is communication’.

In our most recent Ofsted Inspection (Nov 2024), the inspectors commented that Highfields College across all of its sites was a “warm and inclusive school” where “pupils feel happy” and “pupils enjoy exceptionally strong, caring relationships with adult.” The inspectors went further to say “pupils behave extremely well in lessons.”

Not out of anything going wrong but more because we constantly want to strive for excellence, we have recently reviewed our Behaviour Management Policy – including listening to our students. In turn we have decided to make some changes, especially with how we talk about behaviour and how provide rewards.

Our new policy can be found here: New Behaviour Management Policy – Jan 2026

Our approach remains built on two core philosophies that we encourage you to share with your child:

  • Aim High: We view good behaviour not just as following rules, but as developing essential life skills for personal success.
  • Cause No Harm: We guide students to avoid actions that cause conflict, disruption, or hurt to themselves and others.

To bring this to life better, we will now be using the STAR framework to define our daily expectations:

As part of changes to our rewards system, our children will now be rewarded for achieving STAR rather than the previous AEIOU points. We will continue to send home Daily Positives and have our Student of the Week Awards. We will continue to have half-termly rewards and trips but selection onto these will no longer be solely about a league table of how many points they have earned – instead we will open a two week ‘nomination window’ ahead of them for staff to review each child’s profile and put forward students who have either had a good half-term overall – or, crucially, have shown the steepest ‘upward curve’ in terms of improved behaviour.

When challenges arise, we will continue to use a graduated “traffic light” model to provide the right support at the right time. This moves from Yellow (Communication and Chance) for minor moments of dysregulation, to Orange (Care and Choices) for emerging issues, and Red (Care and Control) for serious incidents that require immediate intervention.

As parents and carers, you are our most important partners. We encourage you to reinforce these STAR values at home. By working together, we can help our students make positive choices that lead to long-term success. If you have any queries about the changes, please can you contact our Senior Behaviour Managers – Ms Rothwell on Main Campus and Ms Sidibeh at Brookfield House.