Race Ethnicity, Gender and Family Circumstances and Complying with the School's Policies, Procedures and Legislations and Look at the Wider Implications for a Child's Life

This essay will analyse and evaluate different methods of assessment and identification of children's behaviour support needs and look at the strategies used with the children, give that extra support to the children who are frequently challenging, or show behavioural/ special needs taking into consideration of factors such as race, ethnicity, gender and family circumstances and complying with the school's policies, procedures and legislations and look at the wider implications for a child's life (Rogers 2002). The Statutory Framework for the EYFS (DfES 2012) mentions that the Children's behaviour should be managed effectively, according to their age and stage of development, also keeping in mind each child's particular needs, The practice guidance for the EYFS (DfES 2008) gives support and a structured approach to vulnerable children and those with particular behaviour or communication difficulties to help them achieve successful personal, social and emotional development.

Fox (2002) mentions that there are various areas of child's behaviour that might be challenging and needs to be investigated by observation. This essay will be looking at shouting out, interrupting behaviour of children in classroom. To help analyse the behaviour before starting an observation, one needs to think of the different ways to record. The different types of observation that can be used are direct observation, time sampling and event sampling of behaviour. The Classroom Behaviour list can be used to assess the child. Through assessment and observation the staffs can know more about the child's interests, skills and knowledge and more importantly help analyse the main causes for concern. Also if necessary it is important to talk to parents and work alongside with them to deliver consistency in the support system.

In direct observation, the staff would jot down the important things noticed in the order it happens and it will give an idea of the issue arising from the observation, this kind of record will help notice a lot of areas of behaviour including the interrupting behaviour for the child to work on. For instance where the child could be seated differently to avoid distractions, how to get the child to settle to work during lessons. In time sampling of behaviour the child's behaviour will be noted down at timed intervals, such as between every 5 to 10 minutes. This method of observation will help to know how much time the child sat doing what was supposed to be done, without interrupting or getting distracted. This way the staff can think of ways to help the child if most of the time the child seems to be distracted and interrupting the class or the teacher. Event sampling can be used to observe the behaviour that needs to be monitored, in which will record the number of times the behaviour was displayed by the child within a specific time frame (Fox 2002).

According to Chinn (2010) a Classroom Behaviours List (CBL) is used by teachers in UK, where 34 most frequent occurring behaviour can be assessed on a scale of one to five. The behaviour listed is categorised into three main types of issues. Classroom management and personal organization issues, Social skills and communication issues, and emotional support and guidance issue. When the child is assessed a particular behaviour may be placed in one group, but the underlying cause for the behaviour maybe classified into another group. It is important to talk to children to help understand the cause for the behaviour displayed.

According to the Allen Report (2011) recommends an early intervention approach to social problems, thus giving all children the rebalance in their social and emotional development that they need to achieve. Also SENDA (2001) mentions that it is unlawful to treat a child "less favourably" for reasons due to their disability or any specific needs. Thus the SEN Code of Practice describes how help for children in schools can be delivered with the School Action plan or the School Action Plus, where the staffs plan what extra help is needed for the children, and in the action plus plan take help from specialist teacher or other professionals (Tilstone and Layton 2004).It is important to give the right support for the children and help them achieve the positive behaviour. Identifying and assessing the child will address the interrupting issue. It would help the child show better behaviour and the learning for the whole class can be delivered without interruption. The child would have more confidence and perform better with the support system. If the right support and strategies are not implied, it can affect the child and the whole class. When not supported and just getting told off all the time by the teacher can affect the child's self- esteem, can be withdrawn in class and have low self- confidence to do the task or even lose interest to concentrate on learning, thus not get the class work done. This in turn will affect the child's performance.

There are several theories based on managing children's behaviour. Canter (2001) suggests the assertive and the positive discipline approaches. It suggests that children need adult role-models to set boundaries and expectations. To achieve this staffs should be able to develop warm relationships with the children and set the rules, must use positive and negative consequences for the behaviour displayed by the children, by using set of rewards and punishment. This framework however takes away the independence of the children, by abiding to set of rules and regulations that they might not agree with (Porter 2010).

According to Porter (2010) the behaviour theorist such as Skinner instead focuses at the child's attitude rather than the teachers and proposes that a child continues behaviour because they want to get the thing they are after. Operant Conditioning is based on reinforcement and punishment. To stop the child repeating the unwanted behaviour the theory proposes that the child must either be rewarded a good behaviour or be punished for the behaviour that needs to be changed. Parke and Guavain (2009) say when applying these rewards or punishments the staff must keep in mind the amount with which they are applying control to the children and also be able to maintain the balance between the rewards and the punishment system. In practice it would be difficult to plan this system of rewards and sanctions in any classroom or anticipate any instances that may occur. When in practice a child may display several instances of unwanted behaviour, that may be cause of one reason and that cannot be changed by any amount of sanctions or rewards.

According to Porter (2010) Cognitive-behaviourism theory combines both behaviour and thinking (intelligence) and this incorporates children's self-esteem, development, motivations and emotions within its principles.