ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how policies, and a school's behaviour policy specifically, can additionally either help or hinder teaching assistants (TAs) in managing behaviour. It chapter considers some of the issues with behaviour policies. These have included the fact that almost all policies are applied idiosyncratically – if they are applied at all. The chapter shows that policy implementation ranges between total avoidance to total compliance with many staff existing somewhere in the middle. Whilst the absence of clear guidance from research could be seen as frustrating again, it gives schools and settings a degree of freedom – or bounded autonomy – to make decisions that meet the needs of the children they support. Ofsted reported that a sixth of the teachers they surveyed found their school's behaviour policy to be unhelpful and only around 50 per cent applied it consistently. Goodman, J. also argued for much greater autonomy in respect to discipline, stating that staff teachers and TAs.
