The Ultimate Guide to Positive Behavior Support

The good news is that this can be improved and worked on by implementing positive behavior support models. If you’re wondering what you can do to remedy your school climate situation, then look no further! Not only will they improve your students' attitude within the building, but it can also help improve school morale and the overall atmosphere.

What Is Positive Behavior Support?

Positive behavior support is a method that can be introduced into the school environment in order to get buy-in from students on a variety of issues like engagement, behavior, and more.

It’s important to start it as early as possible to increase the amount of positive engagement from students. Ideally, this would be a great entry point at the beginning of a school year, quarter, trimester, or return from a break. All of these time frames allow all students to come in, learn what is required of them, and then demonstrate it successfully. You could even create a cohort with the other schools in your district by taking PBIS district-wide.

Positive Behavior Support Model

One of the most important aspects of positive behavior support is to develop a clear set of expectations and a clear set of areas where improvement that will be targeted.

Ideally, it would be beneficial to try and target no more than five concerns before moving on to other topics. I would recommend keeping them broad so that a variety of behaviors can slot into them. A great way to start would be to choose these four traits.

Listed below are four basic traits you can target:

• Be Responsible
• Be Respectful
• Be Engaged
• Be Safe

Let's dive into each.

Be Responsible

Let’s focus on what it means to “be responsible.” This is a trait or concept that can be applied to all areas of the building.

Being responsible could be that a student brings their proper supplies to the classroom.

If a student is in the hall, being responsible might look like staying to the right and not pushing. This is a broad concept that works because it can be applied elsewhere.

Be Respectful

If we look at “be respectful,” this too applies to a variety of areas. Within the classroom, being respectful would be following directions or raising a hand if you have a question.

Be Engaged

“Be engaged” would also work in a multitude of locations within the school environment. Perhaps the lunchroom “be engaged” would be to stay at your table and wait to throw away your food until you're dismissed.

Be Safe

Lastly, “be safe” also would be used around the building too. Being safe could be everything from keeping your materials under your desk to prevent people from being tripped, or not running in the hallway.

Positive Behavior Support Strategies

Set Expectations

The first component of positive behavior support is to set expectations (as mentioned above) and guidelines for your students. This can be done in a variety of ways.

For example, you can create both digital and physical posters that can serve as reminders to your student body. These posters should include the expectations that are required for that particular area of the school. They can be hung up throughout the school environment that explain what expectations are for the hallway, the classroom, the bathroom, and more.

Review Expectations

It is also essential to review these expectations with students on a regular basis when they are first starting. Repeating such guidelines in the morning announcements is also a great way to give multiple exposures of them to the student body.

Give Points

Once the expectations have been taught (and retaught!) students must be rewarded for meeting these requirements and rising above them. This too can be done in a variety of ways.

An efficient method to reinforce these expectations would be to create a “caught being good” reward token. When students are staying engaged with a lesson or going above and beyond to participate, they can then receive a ticket reward to demonstrate this.

Celebrate With Rewards

The purpose of a rewards ticket doesn’t stop there though. There must be additional classroom rewards in place to honor that ticket. The ticket must warrant something, otherwise, it’s just a simple piece of paper.

While some students might have that intrinsic motivation to work towards the positivity from their educator, others might need something that is more tangible.

The reason students will want to buy into this process is because of a reward or bonus that is available to them for turning in something like a reward ticket. For example, it could be an idea as large as getting to participate with staff at a school assembly or being given a gift card or treat individually.

You can also allow the students to submit their “tickets” into a raffle drawing that takes place every week. Teachers can then draw tickets so that students can be rewarded with gift cards or virtual prizes depending on what they’d like to receive.

There is a tremendous amount of excitement at the end of the week on a Friday, when the intercom comes on and the students wait to hear if their name was drawn.

Another unique way to draw the tickets would be to film it and then send it out through the school email so students can watch it at the end of the week if time permits. n addition to this there are many other methods that could be used. Ice cream treats, lunch with a teacher, special privileges for a whole class, and many others are quick easy ways to reward positive behavior that will continue to keep students engaged with the positive behavior support system.

These are all a relatively low-cost way to increase student participation in the positive behavior support system.

School-Wide Positive Behavior Support for Everyone

By following PBIS best practices you can create behavior systems that build and foster a collaborative environment between both teacher and student. Students know that teachers are looking for moments to reward them with these systems in place.

Because of this, the student will attempt to meet the challenge and rise to the level that is required of them so that a positive environment is created. There is nothing better for our students than to know that their teachers are looking out for them. Together, they can work together to improve engagement or minimize disruptive behavior.

If a student knows that their teacher has their best interest in their heart (and is ready to reward them) then amazing moments can take place in education!

Working with younger students? Try our resources on PBIS in Elementary Schools. Or if your new to behavior support you should take a look at our Behavior Rubric examples, resources on creating a PBIS Store, or even how to start your PBIS program.