Behaviour plans

a guide for classroom teachers and teacher aides

Behaviour plans are used to think through and plan out the best way to manage more serious, long-term behavioural issues. They have been shown to be effective for increasing prosocial behaviour and reversing the trend of increasing behavioural issues (Reinke et al., 2014). Behaviour plans go by many different titles. However, they all do 3 key things: describe the behaviour, outline strategies to combat it, and specify targets or goals. Behaviour plans are dynamic, practical and workable documents; they should be user-friendly and continually referred to and updated. A behaviour plan that is developed and stored in a filing cabinet never to be seen again is probably not that effective.

Other interested parties such as parents, education experts, medical staff, school managers and support staff may also be involved in the development of the plan. While they can be very complex (if they relate to government funding applications), a simple plan is sufficient in most cases and it can be used as a basis for further expansion over the year. The plan can be extended to include a range of additional processes, strategies (including what has failed), milestones, goals that have been achieved, contingency plans for temporary staff, assistive technologies and so forth. As you become more experienced using behaviour plans, you will be able to create more detailed documents that include a range of strategies, processes and systems.

Hint: Think of an individual behaviour plan in the same way as your ‘class behaviour management plan’ and your ‘behaviour management system’, albeit specifically designed for a single target student.

References:

Reinke, W. M., Stormont, M., Herman, K. C., Wang, Z., Newcomer, L., & King, K. (2014). Use of Coaching and Behavior Support Planning for Students With Disruptive Behavior Within a Universal Classroom Management Program. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 22(2), 74–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1063426613519820