At the end of every school day, students must leave with a positive. They must be praised for something positive they have done during the school day.
It may be that they have broken a window, refused to attend lessons and spent most of the day smoking, assaulted another student or member of staff, traded drugs, any mischief of misbehaviour you can imagine and same you couldn't.
Staff are not allowed to mention bad behaviour. This would be judgmental and being judgmental is a disciplinary offence.
It can sometimes be difficult to find a positive, but a little imagination can help.
"Charlie put his dog ends in the bin instead of throwing them on the floor."
"Evie put her mobile phone away when asked." (But got it out again several times.)
"Johnny apologised for calling the teacher a c***."
"Millie was well behaved during the five minutes she attended the lesson. (Although she only came in to talk to her mate.)
What does this performance achieve? All the bad behaviour of the day is ignored. It has already been dealt with in a counselling session that always follows the behaviour. The problem with these counselling sessions is that they are based on some psychobabble that tries to associate breaking the window with some negative driving force that has made the student what they are. As a result, all bad behaviour can be blamed on some event in the past and is never the student's fault.
The courts seem to take a similar view when they offend.
